Fairy tale · 声匠改编 · 4:13
The Fisherman and the Golden Fish
An old fisherman frees a golden fish that grants wishes, but his wife's wishes keep growing, and the sea grows wilder each time. Pushkin's tale, retold.
Narrator
The Old Fisherman
The Old Woman
The Golden FishOther languages · 2 languages
About this story
The Fisherman and the Golden Fish is a verse fairy tale written in 1833 by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, after the Brothers Grimm's The Fisherman and His Wife, in which the magic fish is a flounder. This bedtime version retells the poem in prose and keeps all five of the old woman's wishes, from a new washtub, a house and a fine lady's life to a tsaritsa's throne and rule over the sea, along with the sea growing wilder each time the old man returns.
What it teaches
Greed grows the more you feed it. The old man asks for nothing and is content; the old woman wants everything and ends up right back where she began.
Suits
Ages 4–9
Tips for telling it
- Make the sea a little wilder each visit: a gentle swish, then a growl, then a storm.
- Let your child join in on the fish's refrain: Go home, and don't be sad.
- Ask: if a golden fish gave you one wish, what would you choose, and would you stop at one?
Questions people ask
- What is the moral of The Fisherman and the Golden Fish?
- Greed is never satisfied. The old woman keeps demanding more and ends up with nothing but her old broken washtub, so be grateful for what you have and repay kindness with kindness.
- Who wrote The Fisherman and the Golden Fish?
- The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote it as a verse tale in 1833; it is also known in English as The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish. It closely follows the Grimms' The Fisherman and His Wife.
- What does 'left with a broken trough' mean?
- In Russian, ending up "at the broken trough" means losing everything you gained and being back where you started. The saying comes from the last scene of Pushkin's tale, where the old woman sits before her cracked washtub, often translated as a trough.
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