FISHES IN FABLE AND FAIRY-TALE. 57 



as the beautiful fish of Breton fairy-lore, that makes its 

 captor promise to eat its brains, as all manner of good luck 

 will then overtake him ; and the same as the numerous 

 other fishes who reward those who catch them with all the 

 riches and pleasures of life. Common also to most fairy- 

 lores are the flounder that was an enchanted prince, which 

 gave to a fisherman all that his wife asked for, even to 

 becoming Pope, but when she asked to be the Creator, the 

 flounder, in indignation, sent her back to her original state ; 

 the grateful fish in the story of Ferdinand the Faithful ; 

 the accommodating fishes who, to help the drummer out of 

 his difficulties, jumped out of the pond and arranged them- 

 selves in proper order on the grass ; the other fishes in 

 Russian and Portuguese stories that assist heroes and 

 heroines to accomplish impossible tasks ; the fish that so 

 wonderfully refreshed the lovers when they were flying 

 from the Dwarfs Island. In all these cases, and many more 

 besides, the benign and philanthropic aspect of the fishes 

 is consistently expressed, and even when these creatures 

 are not actively employed in what may almost be called 

 the routine of their amiabilities, they are found co-operating 

 with men and women for their advantage in a most dis- 

 interested way. Fishermen are perpetually arriving at 

 honours and wealth by the advice of the things they hook 

 and net, and it is quite in the day's work if a fisher-lad 

 becomes a prince and marries the king's daughter. When 

 Biroquoi and his friends are arming the Prince, the fishes 

 furnish the young warrior's "harness," as Don Quixote 

 would call it. They gave him a brilliant cuirass of the 

 scales of golden carps, and placed on his head the shell of 

 a huge snail, which was overshadowed with the tail of a 

 large cod, raised in the form of an aigrette ; a naiad girt 

 him with an eel, from which depended a tremendous sword 



