'Come inside.'

Then he went with her, and inside the castle was a large hall with a
marble floor, and there were heaps of servants who threw open the great
doors, and the walls were covered with beautiful tapestry, and in the
apartments were gilded chairs and tables, and crystal chandeliers hung
from the ceiling, and all the rooms were beautifully carpeted. The best
of food and drink also was set before them when they wished to dine. And
outside the house was a large courtyard with horse and cow stables and
a coach-house--all fine buildings; and a splendid garden with most
beautiful flowers and fruit, and in a park quite a league long were deer
and roe and hares, and everything one could wish for.

'Now,' said the wife, 'isn't this beautiful?'

'Yes, indeed,' said the fisherman. 'Now we will stay here and live in
this beautiful castle, and be very happy.'

'We will consider the matter,' said his wife, and they went to bed.

The next morning the wife woke up first at daybreak, and looked out of
the bed at the beautiful country stretched before her. Her husband was
still sleeping, so she dug her elbows into his side and said:

'Husband, get up and look out of the window. Could we not become the
king of all this land? Go down to the flounder and tell him we choose to
be king.'

'Ah, wife!' replied her husband, 'why should we be king? I don't want to
be king.'

'Well,' said his wife, 'if you don't want to be king, I will be king. Go
down to the flounder; I will be king.'

'Alas! wife,' said the fisherman, 'why do you want to be king? I can't
ask him that.'

'And why not?' said his wife. 'Go down at once. 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