| Title | : | The Fisherman His Wife (Rabbit Ears) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0871919370 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780871919373 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 31 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1812 |
The Fisherman His Wife (Rabbit Ears) Reviews
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“Flounder, Flounder in the sea,
Come, I pray thee, here to me;
For my wife, Dame Ilsabil,
Wills not as I’d have her will.”
The Flounder came swimming to me and said, “Well, what does she want, then?”
“Who?” I said.
“Your wife. You just said your wife Ilsabil has another of her crazy wishes.”
“I’m sorry Flounder, I’m not married. I had to lure you to this review somehow.”
“I see. Well, what do you want from me?”
“I discovered your tale today on Goodreads. It’s a
bi-lingual edition. English and German.”
“Hey, that’s good to hear!”
“No, you don’t understand. They made a picture book of it. I saw it
on Amazon and looked inside.”
“That’s not so bad, is it?”
“No, but they took the English version and then shortened and simplified it.”
“Pity. But I think that’s okay. The whole story is a little complicated for language learners.”
“Yes, maybe. But then they translated it back to German—”
“Hmmm.”
“… and they used
Google Translate for that!”
“What? That’s definitely not okay.”
“Right. The German that came out of it is barley recognizable. Just some random strings of words.”
“Poor learners”, said the Flounder.
“And they don’t use the word ‘flounder’ in the tale.”
“Huh? Which word do they use?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this.”
“Go ahead, tell me.”
“They use—”
“Yes?”
“Goldfish”, I whispered, and looked shamefaced to the ground.
“I know how awful this sounds for you, Flounder, but perhaps – if you grant me another wish – we can correct this and—
Flounder?
Hey, Flounder!
Where did you go?”
But the magical flounder was gone, never to be seen again.
And I was quite faint, and shivered and shook, and my knees and legs trembled. A high wind blew over the land, and the clouds flew, and toward evening all grew dark, and the leaves fell from the trees, and the water rose and roared as if it were boiling, and splashed upon the shore. Soon a great storm was raging, and blowing so hard that I could scarcely keep my feet at the prospect of even more people using Google Translate...
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. -
Full life time stars...
Author was trying to tell us that:
Man's wishes are endless. He can't be contented. He always wishes for more and more. BUT we should be satisfied by the things we have, otherwise we will lose all the things we already have.
Story was great, straight forward and loved it a lot..
Go and read it ^_^ -
I remember seeing an animated version of this on the cartoon TV show Ever After (Or was it Happily Ever After? Gosh it's been so long and I was just a little kid back then) and the wife always had the same pattern on her dress, lol.
Then I had the chance to read the original version of this story in a collection of Grimm's stories, and it was quite entertaining to see how the weather became more turbulent and the fish more cranky every time the fisherman went out to ask something of the fish. -
Illustrated by Diana Bryan
Most of the Rabbit Ears Series that I have seen were mostly aimed at children and would not contain material objectionable to younger children. However, The Fisherman and his Wife was the first story from Rabbit Ears that I have watched that actually kept me at the edge of my seat. The illustrations, the music, and the overall mood of the story are somewhat intense and gloomy at the same time, which has become one of my most watched Rabbit Ears story other than
The Fool and the Flying Ship.
Like every Rabbit Ears story, there is a combination of narration from various celebrities, music, and illustrations to complement to the story without using animation to tell the story. The Fisherman and his Wife is no different from the other Rabbit Ears stories and is narrated by none other than Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster's narration is monotonic as she speaks solely in a gloomy tone giving the story a mysterious edge. Diana Bryan's dark silhouette illustrations enhances the story by creating frightening allusions for the story such as the large appearance of the flounder and scenes where the sea changes color dramatically from light blue to dark purple when the storm is approaching towards the fisherman. Van Dyke Parks' music is extremely mesmerizing as the music resembles a sort of old England tune giving the story a mysterious yet elegant feeling that ranges from the fisherman's mysterious encounter with the flounder to the elegant lifestyle of the fisherman's wife.
Parents should know that younger children may be frightened by this video because of the intense scenes involved in this video. One such intense scene involves the storm causing chaos where it goes, as dark silhouette houses and boulders come crashing down the hill and bright flashes of lightning fill the screen every few seconds. Also, to add to the intensity of the storm scene, when the fisherman approaches the sea, the sea starts changing colors drastically from a lively blue color to a dark and foreboding purple color. Many children may find the disturbing images, such as the brief scene where the flounder's eyes turn red during the storm and the dark silhouette images of the boulders and clouds overwhelming the screen, to be frightening indeed. However, this scene is not as bad as those gory scenes you would find in horror movies nowadays.
The Fisherman and his Wife is simply perfect and breathtaking. The images by Diana Bryan bring an eerie feel to the story but keeps the story fast-paced. Also, I enjoy how the moral of the story was established by starting off with the fisherman's wife wanting to be more powerful than anyone and then suddenly she loses all that power because she was so greedy. This moral applies to anyone who want many materialistic things but ends up losing everything in the end. Despite the intense scenes, this video is worth watching over and over again.
Review is also on:
Rabbit Ears Book Blog
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This was a pretty neat story.
A dude goes out fishing cuz that's how he feeds his fam and makes his cash and catches a flounder who can talk and says he's a prince transformed. At least I think it was a prince. He could have been a king. But either way the fish could talk and said "Don't eat me bra!" and the dude was like "I'm not going to eat a talking fish!" and let the fish go.
Dude goes home to his wife who was like "So what did you wish for?"
And dude was like "Wait... what?"
And she's like "You had a talking fish, dude. You probably got a wish. Go back and wish for us not to live in this pig stye but in a nice little cottage."
The dude goes back and calls the fish and the fish is like "Cool dude! Go back. You got you a cottage."
And he does! But after a day or a week or... time, the wife gets tired of it and wants a castle. Then she wants to be King. Then she wants to be emperor. Then she wants to be Pope. Then she wants to be like a God.
And each time the dude goes back to his fish. And each time the sea looks super ticked off.
But when she wishes to be like a god the fish is like "Oh ok... she's is one!" and they are back at the pig stye. I found that hilarious and kept thinking of song "You Can't Always Get What You Want".
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Rating
I’m giving The Fisherman and His Wife is a solider five out of five stars for me.
Genre
The Fisherman and His Wife is a classic children’s faerie tale from the talented pens of the Brothers Grimm.
About the Book
This is a wonderful story about a magical fish, and the consequences of greed.
Why did I choose this book to read?
I have an app on my phone with all the Brothers Grimm stories on it. Coming along this app made me remember how much I had wanted to read the Brothers Grimm stories and to finally catch up on them like I have been trying for years, and I finally decided to start reading them.
Pricing
Unknown. Read on a free app from the Apple Store.
What did I think of it?
This is the perfect children’s story. It warns of the dangers of being too greedy, and leaves a large moral of the story left behind for children to learn. Even I’ve been forgetting of these dangers in recent times, and this has reminded me of these dangers. It’s got a strong moral, and I think that every parent should read this at least once to their children.
Did I have any qualms with it?
I have no qualms with The Fisherman and his Wife at all.
Would I recommend it and who to?
Any classical lover, any parent and anyone and everyone.
Overall opinion
This is a wondrous story and I am so grateful I got to read this. It was a heavy reminder to me of what the consequences are of greed. It’s easy to forget, when society now a days is set on making us spend more and more money and want more and more material things. It’s really well written, and it really made me think a lot more about how I do in life at the moment. This is a glorious little story and I genuinely think everyone should read this at least once. -
Our youngest brought this book home from her second grade class to practice her reading. While it is an interesting tale, I encouraged her to seek out any chapter books that might challenge her a bit more.
The narrative by
Pauline Cartwright is short, perfect for beginning readers and the repetition helps to foster reading ability, comprehension, and confidence. The illustrations by
Marie Low are colorful and complement the story nicely.
Overall, this is an interesting retelling of the classic story by
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm and
Wilhelm Karl Grimm. We enjoyed reading this book together. -
Pleasantly surprised with this one. The message is that greediness never leads to any good as it can never be satisfied. No matter how much you get of what you want, it will never be enough and you'll constantly be left craving more. Learn to be grateful for what you have and what you've worked for. Sometimes less is more.
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"wake up! go to the Flounder, for I wish to be even as God is"
You know it is a good one when it makes you cry. Best one of them all, yet. -
Y todo volvió a su sitio.
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Abrupt and flat ending otherwise I would have enjoyed it more.😏😏😏😏😏
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A book that needs to be read and re-read by both children and adults for the important message it spreads.
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Va dritta al punto
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A tasty wonderful read.
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Human ambition is never satisfied because people will always want more than what they have. Only thing is that the poor fisherman is free of sin because he is not ambitious like his wife. He doesn't mind living in a pigsty but his wife does and she probably "nags" him about getting a job. The fisherman's wife is the ambitious ingrate in the story but reality is that men and women can both fall prey to greed. I like the moral of the story but I don't like that the woman figure was made to be selfish and greedy, seems like a protestant, anti-virgin Mary, male chauvinist story.
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The Fisherman and His Wife is the story a simple fisherman and his greedy wife. It features a prince, who was transformed into a fish and can grant wishes. The story is performed by Jodie Foster and is a pleasure to listen to. The music beautifully accompanies the story, invoking the magic of the tale. -
Enchanting art and excellent narration by Jodie Foster.
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I have to say I wasn't that big of a fan of this however at the end I genuinely laughed at the end of the story.
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Wow. No words for this one...
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This is the tale of the greedy wife of a fisherman who pursues wealth and power. Perhaps only the readers notice the wreck of the fish’s sea as her wishes are granted.
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I have the whole Brothers Grimm collection and I do love it. It has all the classics and even ones I never heard of. This being one of them.
As I was reading The Fisherman And His Wife I could not help but feel frustration and anger towards the fisherman's wife. She was so engulfed in greed that she could not see past her nose. She was so full of herself she did not care what others thought or had to say. The more she asked her husband to wish for the greeder she got. Her husband also had no balls. Yes he tried to stand up to her but he caved either way and did as he was told. The only true character is the Prince Flounder who at the end said the hell with her and took back all her wishes and left her in the pigsty she first lived in.
The tale is truly a good tale about jealousy and greed. How it can eat a person hole and leave them with nothing. I love the life lesson this tale had to offer. -
This story illustrates greed at work. We always start off with something and desire more and then more and then more again until we die or actually lose everything while alive.
The Fisherman's Wife is never satisfied with the granted wishes and always desires more until she eventually ends up where she initially started. As she wishes for more and more nature becomes more destructive almost as if the granting of the wishes was destroying the world.
In the end, the Fisherman's Wife desired power over the sun and moon. It is interesting that the fish was willing to grant all that she asked for within the human world. From Fisherman's Wife she ended up being the Pope. This final wish was control over nature which the fish refused to grant and all of her other wishes were undone. Humans should not have power over nature. Also, it shows the powerlessness we have over nature. It is a limit that I suppose should not be crossed. -
Oh, la avaricia...
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This was a very entertaining and interesting Grimm Brothers fairy tale.
