‘Once a prince, but changed you be Into a flounder in the sea. Come! for my wife, Ilsebel, Wishes what I dare not tell.’
‘Well, what does she want now?’ asked the flounder.
‘Alas!’ said the fisherman, ‘she wants to be pope.’
‘Go home, then; she is that already,’ said the flounder.
Then he went home, and when he came there he saw, as it were, a large church surrounded by palaces. He pushed his way through the people. The interior was lit up with thousands and thousands of candles, and his wife was dressed in cloth of gold and was sitting on a much higher throne, and she wore three great golden crowns. Round her were numbers of Church dignitaries, and on either side were standing two rows of tapers, the largest of them as tall as a steeple, and the smallest as tiny as a Christmas-tree candle. All the emperors and kings were on their knees before her, and were kissing her foot.
‘Wife,’ said the fisherman looking at her, ‘are you pope now?’
‘Yes,’ said she; ‘I am pope.’
So he stood staring at her, and it was as if he were looking at the bright sun. When he had watched her for some time he said:
‘Ah, wife, let it be enough now that you are pope.’
But she sat as straight as a tree, and did not move or bend the least bit. He said again: