nce. I must be king.'

So the fisherman went, though much vexed that his wife wanted to be
king. 'It is not right! It is not right,' he thought. He did not wish to
go, yet he went.

When he came to the sea, the water was a dark-grey colour, and it was
heaving against the shore. So he stood and said:

'Once a prince, but changed you be
Into a flounder in the sea.
Come! for my wife, Ilsebel,
Wishes what I dare not tell.'

'What does she want now?' asked the flounder.

'Alas!' said the fisherman, 'she wants to be king.'

'Go home; she is that already,' said the flounder.

The fisherman went home, and when he came near the palace he saw that it
had become much larger, and that it had great towers and splendid
ornamental carving on it. A sentinel was standing before the gate, and
there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets. And when
he went into the palace, he found everything was of pure marble and
gold, and the curtains of damask with tassels of gold. Then the doors of
the hall flew open, and there stood the whole Court round his wife, who
was sitting on a high throne of gold and diamonds; she wore a great
golden crown, and had a sceptre of gold and precious stones in her hand,
and by her on either side stood six pages in a row, each one a head
taller than the other. Then he went before her and said:

'Ah, wife! are you king now?'

'Yes,' said his wife; 'now I am king.'

He stood looking at her, and when he had looked for some time, he said:

'Let that be enough, wife, now that you are king! Now we have nothing
more to wish for.'

'Nay, husband,' said his wife restlessly, 'my wishing powers are
boundless; I cannot restrain them any longer. Go down to the flounder;
king I am, now I must be emperor.'

'Alas! wife,' said the fisherman, 'why do you want to be emperor?'

'Husband,' said she, 'go to the flounder; I _will_ be emperor.'

'Ah, wife,' he said, 'he cannot make you emperor; I don't like to ask
him that. There is only one emperor in the kingdom. Indeed and indeed he
cannot make you emperor.'

'What!' said his wife. 'I am king, and you are my husband. Will you go
at once? Go! If he can make king he can make emperor, and emperor I must
and will be. Go!'

So he had to go. But as he went, he felt quite frightened, and he
thought to himself, 'This can't be right; to be emperor is too
ambitious; the flounder will be tired out at last.'

Thinking this he came to the shore. The