The Fish Prince

Once there was a king and a queen who had two sons. The elder son was very short and plain, with only one eye, right in the middle of his forehead. His younger brother was tall and handsome.

The king liked his handsome son better and wanted to make him heir to the throne. “My people will never follow a tiny man with just one eye,” he said.

This made the elder son, Deesa, very angry. “The kingdom should be mine,” he said. “Or if I can’t have all of it, it should be split between us.”

He said this to his wife, Matni. She was an enchantress, and she made up her mind to win the whole kingdom for her husband if she could. She thought it all over, and then she invited the younger prince to a feast in her part of the palace.

“After supper,” she told her husband, “sit with your brother on the balcony above the river. I will turn him into a fish, and you can throw him into the water. Then we shall hear no more of him.”

Deesa agreed. After supper he asked his brother to come and sit with him on the balcony. Matni climbed up to the roof and sprinkled some powder down onto the younger prince’s head, and in an instant he became a little fish. His brother picked him up and tossed him into the river.

It all happened so fast that the prince hardly knew what was going on. He turned over and over as he fell, but when the water closed over him, he found he had become a fish and could swim beautifully under the water. Somehow he knew, too, that Matni had bewitched him, and he wanted to get far away from her. So he swam and swam, and after two days he was out of his father’s kingdom.

One day some fishermen caught him in their net and took him to the palace of the king of that country, to be cooked for dinner. But he was only small, and one of the servants felt it would be far better to keep him as a pet in a bowl than to put him in the pot.

So she asked if she could have the little fish. “I will take it to the queen’s room,” she said. “She has no children and is often lonely. This little fish may cheer her up.”

The queen was delighted with the pretty little fish and grew very fond of him. When he grew too big for his bowl, she had a bigger one made for him, and she fed him boiled rice twice a day. “He is such a darling,” she said, “that I shall call him Athon-Rajah, the Fish Prince.”

In time the Fish Prince grew so large that the queen had a tank built for him, with clear river water flowing in and out of it.

Then one day the queen began to worry that the Fish Prince might not be comfortable in his tank, and that he might rather be in the shining river that flowed past her windows. “Are you quite happy here, Athon-Rajah?” she asked him.

The Fish Prince thought for a moment. “I am quite happy here, dear Queen-mother,” he said, “but I would be happier still if you could find me a wife. It is very lonely here on my own.”

The queen loved the Fish Prince like her own son, and it never crossed her mind that any girl might not want to marry him. “If you want a wife, I can easily find you one,” she said. “But wouldn’t you like to go and swim in the river?”

“Certainly not,” said the Fish Prince. “All I want is a wife, and to live right here.”

His answer surprised the queen, but then, she did not know that he was only a fish on the outside.

“Very well,” she said. “I will find you a wife straight away and have a room built in your tank for her.”

The room was soon built, but finding a wife for the Fish Prince was not so easy! Everyone knew that he was the queen’s pet, but they said he was a monster of a fish who only wanted a wife so that he could gobble her up. The queen sent messengers far and wide, to rich and poor alike, but nobody would let a daughter marry the Fish Prince. Even families with eight or ten daughters politely said no. Then the queen promised a big bag of gold to any father willing to let his daughter marry her pet, but for a long time nothing came of it.

At last a fakir, a poor beggar, heard about the bag of gold. “You may have my eldest daughter,” he told the messenger. “She can’t be worse off than she is now, and the gold will make me rich.”

“Where is she?” asked the queen’s messenger.

“Down by the river, washing clothes,” said the man. “She is the child of my first wife. Her stepmother makes her do all the hard work and won’t give her enough to eat.”

“She gets more than she deserves!” snapped the stepmother. “Far more! Take her and welcome. We’ll be glad to see the back of her, and if the Fish Prince wants to eat her, let him.”

So the messenger gave the fakir the bag of gold and went down to the river. There he found a very pretty girl washing clothes at the water’s edge. When she heard why he had come, she wept bitterly, and she begged him to let her say goodbye to an old friend before he took her away.

“Who is this friend?” asked the messenger. “The queen told us not to waste any time.”

“He is a seven-headed cobra,” said the girl. “He has been my friend since I was small.”

The girl, whose name was Maya, hurried along the riverbank in tears, and the cobra poked all seven of his heads out of his hole.

“I have heard everything already,” he said. “Don’t cry. Pick up the three pebbles lying outside my hole and keep them in your dress. When you see the Fish Prince coming, throw the first one at him. If it strikes him, down he will go to the floor of the tank. When he comes up, hit him with the second, and the same thing will happen. Then throw the third pebble, and he will turn from a fish into a handsome young prince.”

“Then he isn’t really a fish?” asked Maya.

“He is a king’s son under a spell,” said the cobra. “But you can break the spell in the way I have told you.”

Maya wiped her eyes and set off with the messenger to the palace. They showed her the pretty little room that had been made for her inside the Fish Prince’s tank, and the queen gave her a kiss. “You are exactly the bride my Athon-Rajah needs,” she said.

Everyone was very kind to Maya, and she would have been quite happy if it were not for the thought of the cold, dark water, and the fear that she might miss the Fish Prince with her pebbles. But she let them put her into the little room, and there she sat and waited a long time, with the pebbles in her hand.

Then came the sound of rushing water and waves slapping against the door. She peeped out and saw an enormous fish rushing at her, his jaws gaping!

“Let me in to see my wife!” the Fish Prince called. “Open the door!”

Shaking from head to foot, Maya opened the door and threw the first pebble. It went straight down his throat, and he sank like a stone. But in a minute or two he came up to the surface.

Then Maya threw the second pebble. It hit the Fish Prince on the head, and down he sank for the second time.

Maya was so nervous that she nearly missed him with the third pebble. It only just touched the tip of his fin. But this time he did not sink. Instead he changed into a handsome young man, who held her close and gave her a gentle kiss.

“You have broken the spell!” he cried. “Now we can enjoy the sunshine and be happy in the world above, and we need not live in a tank any more.”

So they were lifted out of the water and taken to the palace, where nobody could have been happier than Maya and the Fish Prince.

Where this story comes from

This tale comes from The Magic Bed: A Book of East Indian Fairy-Tales, edited by Hartwell James, illustrated by John R. Neill and published in Philadelphia by the Henry Altemus Company. The book does not say exactly where in India the story was collected.

The book calls Maya’s father “a fakir or beggar-man”. In the original, the king’s elder son is called “a dwarf with only one eye”; here he is simply described as very short.

Read the original: Hartwell James, The Magic Bed: A Book of East Indian Fairy-Tales (Project Gutenberg #37708, The Fish Prince)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12 with adult discussion; includes prejudice about physical appearance, a brother’s magical attack, a paid marriage arrangement and fear of being eaten.

A closer reading

The father’s preference begins with appearance rather than evidence of fitness to rule. Deesa’s exclusion is unfair, but that does not justify his and Matni’s attack on his brother. The story allows both judgments at once: bodily difference should not disqualify an heir, and resentment does not excuse violence.

The second queen notices the fish’s needs for space and companionship but assumes a girl can be supplied as the answer. Her generosity to him does not extend to asking what Maya wants. The father’s payment and the stepmother’s indifference turn Maya’s future into a transaction, which the happy transformation cannot retroactively make voluntary.

The cobra gives Maya information no one at the palace supplies: the fish’s identity and the means of ending the spell. She then acts while frightened and nearly misses the last throw. Her contribution is practical and specific; a general claim that love breaks the spell overlooks both the advice and the task she performs. The ending leaves Deesa’s succession dispute unresolved.

Try this with the story

Compare what the queen asks the Fish Prince with what anyone asks Maya. List the information each has before the meeting in the tank. Then track how the cobra’s explanation changes Maya’s understanding without erasing the pressure placed on her.

Think about it

• Why is the king’s preference unfair, and why does that not excuse Deesa’s plot?
• How does the queen consider the fish’s wishes but overlook Maya’s?
• What information does the cobra provide?
• Which problems are solved by the transformation, and which are left unresolved?

More stories like this

• The Snake Prince — another Indian fairy tale about a prince under a spell
• The Magic Bed — the title story of the same book
• The Brahmin and the Cobra — another Indian tale with a helpful cobra