“If the pike does whatever I ask all will be got ready for me, and I shall have no need to work.”
He therefore said to the pike:
“I will let you go, only do what you promise.”
Thereupon the pike made answer:
“First place me in the water, and I will fulfil my promise.”
But the fool said to him that he must first of all perform his promise, and that he would then let him go.
The pike, seeing that he would not put him into the water, said:
“If you wish me to do for you what you want,
you must now tell me what it is that you desire.”
The fool said: