The Fisherman's Tale

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a poor fisherman caught a fish with his fishing rod; a very big fish as big as a pike but the fish was a flying fish that had flown all the way from Africa and, struggling to break free, flew up into the air and flew so high that it lifted the fisherman off of the ground by his rod.
"Help", said the fisherman as he clung on for dear life to his fishing rod, "Put me down".
"I can't put you down", said the fish, "I'm caught on your hook. Why don't you let go of me?".
But the fisherman couldn't let go because the fish had lifted him so far off of the ground that he was afraid of falling to his doom.
So the flying fish flew over the forest dragging him through all the trees and off the edge of a cliff over the open sea.
"Oh what will I do now!", said the fisherman, looking down and seeing the deep, blue sea beneath him.
And after some time the fisherman started to grow tired and his grip on the rod slackened until, able to hold on no longer, the fisherman fell out of the sky.
Fortunately, just at that moment a blue whale was passing by and seeing the man fall out of the sky squirted a tall jet of water from its blowhole, catching the man upon the jet.
Then lowering the man onto its back, it said,
"I should not have saved you. You are a man and men kill my kind but unfortunately we whales are aflicted by a kind heart".
"Well I am very grateful to you, sir whale", the man replied, "And now that a whale has saved my life, I swear that I will never have any part in killing one".
And the whale was so pleased with the mans reply that he carried the man to the safety of a tropical island and left him there.
On the island everything seemed magical, for example the fisherman cracked open a coconut upon a rock, hoping to drink some milk but instead a strange, hairy ape sprang out of the cocoanut and, beating its chest, ran off into a nearby forest; then he tried cracking open another one but a large bird flew out and, grabbing hold of his hat flew away with it.
"What strange coconuts grow upon this island", he thought, picking up another one but this time placing it in his sack, saying, "I'll take one as a souvenir and show it to my family when I get home".
But then looking up the fisherman saw a ship but it was sitting on top of a hill.
"What a strange place to put a ship", he thought but, since everything upon the island seemed strange, he shrugged his shoulders and started to climb up the hill.
To his amazement he saw that the ship had a large pair of wings instead of a sail and he concluded that it must be a flying ship but, try as he might he couldn't get the ship to fly and so he went to explore a nearby cave instead.
Inside the cave he saw a pot full of gold coins with the words, "Pot of eternal wealth" upon it and an owl with the words "Owl of eternal wisdom" engraved on its chest.
But the pot was far too heavy for him to lift and so he picked up the owl instead and when he did it opened its eyes.
"I know all there is, ask me anything and I shall give you the answer", it said.
"Whose cave is this?", asked the man.
"Why the cave of Gogmagog the giant", said the owl.
"And where is he now?", asked the man.
"He went to the other end of the island to fill his bucket from the waterfall but he is on his way back home now, infact he has almost reached the cave", said the owl, "What else would you like to know?".
"How do I make the flying ship fly?", he asked.
"You must sing to it", said the owl, "And if the ship likes your song then it will fly".
Just then however, the fisherman heard the sound of giant foot steps approaching and looking out of the cave saw the Giant, Gogmagog coming home.
Starting to panic, the fisherman asked the owl,
"What do I do? How do I get out of this cave without the giant catching me?".
"You must tip over the pot of eternal wealth", said the owl, "The giant is such a miser that, rather than losing one coin from an eternal pot he will try to put the coins back into it and while he is doing that you must get onto the ship".
And so that is what the Fisherman did.
With all his might he pushed upon the heavy pot until it tipped over and when it did, a river of gold coins started to pour out.
At first the fisherman was tempted to take some of the coins for himself but the owl told him to forget about the coins.
"There is no time to worry about them, run to the ship or the giant will catch you", it said.
So the fisherman ran as fast as he could to the ship and, just as the owl had said, rather than chasing him the Giant tried to save his gold coins then, as soon as he was on board the ship he started to sing.
He sang the only song he knew; a lullaby that his mother had sung to him as a small child,
"Why are there so many
stars within the sky?
Because the stars are pennies
and the moon is rich, thats why.

 

Will he give me any
golden stars to keep?
Yes, you'll have six bright pennies
if you'll just go to sleep".

 

And as soon as he did the wings of the flying ship began to flap and when the wings started to flap then the ship began to rise and so he kept singing and very soon the ship was flying through the air.

 

Unfortunately for the fisherman, just as he was nearing the coast of his homeland he got tired of singing; his throat becoming dry and his voice growing hoarse and when this happened he started to sing off key and when he did that the ship started to fly in circles.

 

He tried to sing it back into flying straight, ofcourse, but his voice only seemed to get worse and worse and when that happened the ship flipped completely upside down so that now the fisherman fell out of it and, screaming, plummeted towards the deep, blue sea below.

 

"Oh help! Help", he shouted.

 

Fortunately, just at that moment the brother of the blue whale that had saved him before was passing by underneath and seeing the man fall out of the sky squirted a tall jet of water from its blowhole, catching him upon the jet.
"Oh, thank you", he said, "Thats twice you've saved me".
"Oh not me", said the whale, "You must have met my brother".
"Well then a great streak of kindness must run in your family", said the man.
But then the whale took him safely to the shore of his homeland and, saying goodbye to the whale, the fisherman started to walk home.
When the man finally  got back home and told his family about his strange adventure, however, they did not believe a word of it.
"Where is the pot of endless gold?", asked his mother.
"...or the talking owl?", asked his father.
"Well, I told you, I had to leave the pot of gold behind", he said, feeling sad that they would not believe him, "And I suppose, in the rush, I must have left the owl behind aswell".
But then, happily, he remembered the coconut that he had put in his sack upon first arriving on the Giants island and breaking it open, to his amazement, out flew the owl of eternal wisdom and out poured the pot of endless gold.