The Fisherman and the Enchanted Flounder

A poor fisherman, living with his wife in a shabby little hut, caught an enchanted flounder one day who begged for his life, revealing himself to be an enchanted prince. The kind fisherman released him without asking for anything in return, but when he told his wife, she scolded him for not at least wishing for a nicer cottage, and sent him back to ask.

The flounder granted the cottage instantly. But the wife, satisfied only briefly, sent her husband back again and again — for a stone castle, then to be made king, then emperor, then pope, each wish granted a little more reluctantly than the last by the increasingly troubled sea, which grew darker and stormier with every visit as if reflecting her mood.

Finally, unsatisfied even with being pope, she demanded to be made equal to God himself, controlling the sun and moon's rising and setting. This wish, unlike all the others, was refused — and the fisherman returned home to find his wife back in their original shabby hut, every gift stripped away at once, having discovered too late that endless wanting eventually asks for something no gift can ever satisfy, and loses everything it already had in the reaching.