Story Revision: The Fish Princess

I thought I had it all.

One day, I’m living in a castle, being adorned by all, the most beautiful princess the world had ever seen.  Princes came from far and wide to ask for my hand, but of course, none of them matched up.  However, I secretly longed to find this thing that people called true love.  Then, one day, a poor old woman comes to me and asks me to meet her nephew.  At the time, being the rude, arrogant person I was, all I could think was, "Look at this old hag! She thinks that I would honestly be interested in marrying her peasant nephew?  Who does she think I am?!"  So I laughed in the woman's face, as well as said a few things I'm not proud of, to which she responded by turning into a beautiful sorceress.  She then said, "You are vain and selfish.  How do you expect to find true love when your ego is so big that it blinds you?  To teach you a lesson, I will turn you into a fish.  Only for an hour each day will you be able to shed your fish skin and regain human form.  And only after you find true love may you destroy the fish skin and break the spell permanently.  But be warned, your true love must be the one to destroy it, no one else, or you will turn back into a fish.  Forever."

So then she turned me into a fish and took me to the lake, hours away from my home so that I would not even have enough time to walk back without turning back into a fish and dying from not being able to breath.

After wallowing in self pity for a few months, one day, a young fisherman caught me in his net. I watched as he began to skin the other fish he caught and thought, “Surely this is not how my life is meant to end.” But when he picked me up, he paused and stared at me for moment.  I'm not quite sure what he was thinking, but looking into his eyes, I felt a strange feeling that I had never felt before.  He then put me in a separate bucket of water, finished his work, and took me back to his house where I was placed in a glass tank. “So I am his pet?” I thought. “Well, I suppose this is better than having to fend for myself in the lake, or being someone's dinner.”

And so, for a few days, I was just his pet fish.  Occasionally, he would stoop by the tank and talk to me - as if he expected a reply - and tell me about his day; his work, his friends, how he was sure his neighbors were stealing his mail, and how much he longed to find his true love.  Listening to him, watching him day in and day out, the strange feeling in my heart grew stronger and stronger, until I finally realized, it was love.  Yearning to show him my true identity, one day, when he went to go fish, I hopped from the tank, shed my fish skin, and turned into my human self, ready to greet him when he came home.  But then, worried he would be frightened and mistake me as a witch, I decided it wouldn't be a good idea.  Longing to show him my affection but too scared to reveal myself just yet, I thought, “I know, I’ll write him a sweet love note and leave it on his door step.” So, that’s what I did.  I then grabbed my fish skin and returned to the tank. 

When he returned home, he was delighted to read the note and very eager to meet the mystery maiden who had left it for him.  And so each day, I waited until he left and wrote these notes, delighting in seeing his reaction when he read them.  Then one day, hoping to finally see the maiden, he didn't go fishing, but instead left the house, walked away thinking the maiden might be waiting for him to leave, and quickly came back to sneak through the back door.

Not knowing of his plan, and not realizing he came back, I hopped out of the tank and turned into my human self to write another note.  Seeing my transformation and realizing that I was his mystery maiden, he rushed to grabbed the fish skin off the floor and ran to the fireplace.  I tried to warn him before he destroyed it, still unsure if he was my true love, but it was too late.  When he tossed it into the fire, I froze for a moment, terrified that I would become a fish again.  Then....nothing happened. I was still human! The witch's curse had been broken!  And without wasting a moment, the fisherman took my hand and asked me to marry him, to which I couldn't reply "Yes!" fast enough.  I had finally found my true love.

After the matter, I asked him how he knew that burning the fish skin would break the spell.  You can imagine my surprise when his answer was, "Oh, my aunt is a witch.  She used to tell me all about the spells she would caste on people.  By the way, how did you become a fish?"

Author's Note: This is a revised version of the story I wrote in week 5.  It is a retelling of the "The Fish-Peri" by Ignacz Kunos.  This was probably my favorite story I wrote.  After, rereading it, I decided to add a little more background to explain why the princess was turned into a fish.  In this way, I made it a little more similar to Beauty and the Beast; except, in this story, the fish princess would be Beast and the fisherman be Beauty.  I also added a few bits of humor and changed the ending to mention how the fisherman knew that destroying the fish skin would break the spell.  Below is my original author's note that describes how I derived my story from the original story:

The original fairy tale tells the story of a young fisherman who catches a fish that is too fine to sell or eat, so he takes it home and keeps it in a well.  When he is away, he comes back home and finds that his house has been cleaned.  The young man eventually hides in his house to catch the person responsible and sees the fish transform into a maiden of exceeding beauty.  I started my story off similarly to the original, but I decided to make the maiden a princess and to tell the story from her point of view, instead of third-person like the original.  I also gave her a back story to explain how she became a fish.  And instead having her clean his house, I had her write him love notes.  In the original, the fisherman tosses the fish skin into a fire, to which the maiden disapproves of, but then consents to marry him.  In my story, I made it so we could see the maiden falling in love with the fisherman, and that burning the fish skin meant breaking the witch's spell so they could live happily ever after.

Bibliography: "The Fish-Peri" from Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos.  Source: The Fish-Peri

Image info:  Fish drawing by Avia Venefica. Source: Flickr