“Spare my life! Spare my life! I will give you all that you shall desire.”
And this poor man spared its life, and went home without having caught anything else. When he came home his wife asks him:
He tells her how that he had caught a fish, and that it had begged him to spare its life, and that he had left it in the water. His wife says to him:
“Have you lost your head then? After having caught a fish to put it back again into the water!”
And she called him all sorts of names, even “big donkey.”
The next day he goes fishing again, and (what a chance!) the same fish came again. It asks him again to spare its life. But the man answers:
“No! My wife loaded me with abuse last evening.”
The fish said to him that he would give him as much money as he wished if he would but spare him. And our fisherman lets him go again. He remains there again all day, but nothing comes to his hook. Again he goes off home without anything at all. His wife is furious at seeing that he has nothing. He gives her some money, but she was not satisfied, and told her husband that he ought to have brought the fish.
He goes fishing again for the third time, and again the same fish returns, and says to him, “Let me go into the water.”