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The Fisherman and His Wife (1857)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- clausecker 1y agoA famous fairytale from Germany.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1y agoPossibly following from this article? To understand how AI will reconfigure humanity, try this German fairytale https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/16/ai-artificial-intelligence-fairytale-fisherman https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/sep/16/ai-artificial-...
- bloak 1y agoI saw the title of that article a few days ago and didn't read it, but today I noticed the name of the author. Clemens Setz has written some good stuff.
- zackmorris 1y agoI had this realization a few years ago after experiencing various forms of manifestation to bring things into my life, improve my health, etc. Tech and especially AI seem to be catalysts that amplify the effect that our inner reality has on the outer co-created reality (if we believe in duality), just like with Arthur C. Clarke's third law: https://www.thoughtco.com/what-are-clarkes-laws-2699067 https://www.thoughtco.com/what-are-clarkes-laws-2699067 So D&D stats like wisdom and charisma that were easily overlooked in our modern world are starting to surpass, say, intelligence when it comes to self-actualization/ascension. If we follow this to its logical conclusion, then there are magical laws to consider, if such things could possibly be summarized in words: https://www.themystica.com/the-laws-of-magic/ https://www.themystica.com/the-laws-of-magic/ http://www.neopagan.net/AT_Laws.html http://www.neopagan.net/AT_Laws.html I believe that every use of magic comes with a cost, which is unknown if the wielder isn't mindful of it. In the simplest terms: using magic to satisfy one's ego by acquiring something deprives someone of something - often the wielder. There are a few ways to minimize the consequence of using magic: 1) Sacrifice something of value for the magic to consume 2) Appeal to a higher power through prayer, the law of attraction, etc like a paladin so that the spirit bears the cost 3) Act in alignment with the heart so that creation has a chance to help behind the scenes (loosely related to #2) 4) Avoid the use of magic altogether and stick to objectivity, that free will is a fantasy, that reason supersedes meaning, etc I'm sure I'm missing some, as I'm relearning childish notions around magical thinking. I think what we're seeing when our most wealthy and powerful leaders denounce empathy is the outward expression of #4. Because empathy allows one to simulate the subjective experience of others in the mind, which opens the door to meaning, the golden rule, reincarnation, even the multiverse and parallel timelines. On the one hand they say that magic is dead, but on the other they use tools like psychology/economics/politics that blur the line between science and magic in order to gain control. The ultimate expression of tech as magic might be something like the Emperor in Star Wars. Total impeccability and plausible deniability from accountability, yet no soul. What I've come to realize in my own life is that feeling the magic passing through us is akin to shifting realities. It can't be studied scientifically, because the observer may see outcomes that differ from those of other observers in the previous reality. Science may be deterministic on one timeline, but stochastic across timelines. Which ties into consciousness, quantum mechanics, synchronicity, pantheism, the many faces of God as every living thing, etc. Whether we influence the world through our actions of manipulate it through control of our attention, karmic consequences still come. The inward flow of psychic energy for personal gain creates a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whereas the outward flow in service to others creates a sense of abundance. Life becomes a dance of working with these energies, either low-vibration or high-vibration, fear or love. Where I'm going with this is that this rediscovered power of love has the potential to shift humanity into a reality where our demons can't follow. We are temporarily on this one which seems to be fraught with danger because maybe some part of our soul felt that our help was needed here most. We can shift to a gentler timeline if we wish, or continue playing the life we paid a quarter for in the astral plane and do some world building here. From a Zen perspective, I've said too much, yet nothing at all. I hope this helps someone find a little peace and light amidst the separation and darkness of these times.
- IAmBroom 1y agoRegarding your link: http://www.neopagan.net/AT_Laws.html http://www.neopagan.net/AT_Laws.html If magick were real, the person behind that MySpace-worthy website background would have been cursed into oblivion by now. Ergo, magick isn't real.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoPascals wager suggest it is in your interest to believe in the supernatural
- the_sleaze_ 1y agoPascals wager involves God and the consequence of an eternity spent in either heaven or hell, not magick.
- andsoitis 1y agoPascal’s Wager assumes an afterlife isn’t it? There is only evidence that this is our only life; no reincarnation or some spiritual realm that persists our identity/ego/soul/consciousness/memory.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoPascal was describing belief in god but I was mainly getting at the logical framework. Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.
- zh3 1y agoOr even the similar story on CNN - "The media is learning what happens when you give a mouse a cookie" (as the article says: "Spoiler alert: The mouse has some more demands") * https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/19/business/media-business-trump-kimmel https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/19/business/media-business-t...
- bcraven 1y agoI'd never heard of that story before I heard the Decoder Ring episode. America sounds _wild._ https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2024/09/how-if-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie-got-caught-up-in-the-culture-wars https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2024/09/how-if-you-g...
- shoo 1y agoWhat moral do you take away from this story?
- gorjusborg 1y agoUnbounded greed will prevent you from enjoying the benefits of your life.
- serf 1y agobeing a deity is a crap job, aim for Pope.
- bhaak 1y agoSome people are greedy and don't know when to stop when they have enough. The fisherman is notably not one of those people. Older generations might have been most offended by the "becoming like God" part. The enchanted fish was willing to grant any wish that is in principle achievable by a human being, even the most ridiculous wish of becoming Pope. But the moment the wish transcends that human realm it is turned down and punished. I guess the theme of "becoming like God" resonates with the story from Adam and Eve's fall.
- _bla_ 1y agoI don’t think of it as punishment. She gets her wish granted, she just did not understand that God does not care about the kind of shallow riches the fisherman’s wife is aiming for.
- thomasmg 1y agoMy interpretation is that the fish didn't actually turn down and punish, but fulfilled the wish. It's just that the fish thought: to be like God means to be humble. She asks to be like God, true godliness is humility. So she did get what she wanted, but not in the way she thought. (BTW I'm not religious in the sense I go to church a lot, and don't even necessarily believe in God, but I do share many of the values of religion.)
- lblume 1y ago
- littlecranky67 1y agoThere is a german movie of the same title based on the story: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430097 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430097
- bloak 1y agoOne of my favourites. The Grimms' original is in a Low German dialect but the style is so beautifully simple that if you know the story and have a good knowledge of standard German then you can probably understand almost everything: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Von_dem_Fischer_un_syner_Fru_(1857) https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Von_dem_Fischer_un_syner_Fru_...
- Nashooo 1y agoIt's crazy how this is almost perfectly readable as a Dutch person.
- rob74 1y agoWithout being very familiar with any of them, I suspect Low German and Dutch are pretty closely related?
- derfniw 1y agoVery close, and I can confirm that as someone who knows "standard Dutch" it is fairly easy to read. It wouldn't surprise me if it is even easier for someone from the german-dutch border region who is fluent in a local dialect.
- ahazred8ta 1y agoStay away from the german dutch portuguese creole https://pfl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riograndenser_Hunsr%C3%BCckisch https://pfl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riograndenser_Hunsr%C3%BCckis...
- ahazred8ta 1y agoThey blend into each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenish_fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenish_fan -- https://duckduckgo.com/?q=german+dutch+isoglosses&iar=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=german+dutch+isoglosses&iar=images
- bgnn 1y ago
- bryanrasmussen 1y agohmm, a sort of fractured fairy tales version https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-shark-and-the-surfer-fa017e4d448a https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-shark-and-the-surfer-fa...
- epiccoleman 1y agoha. weird.
- kylebenzle 1y ago[dead]
- Mlller 1y agoThis tale of the Grimmsʼ collection was contributed (in a Low German dialect) by Philipp Otto Runge. His main profession was painting, and he designed a color model using a sphere.[1] His interest in colors certainly left a trace in the elaboration how the sea and the sky are colored and change their colors. Runge contributed another tale, “Von dem Machandelboom” ‘Of / about the juniper tree’. Both tales were held in high regard by the Grimms. They saw some traits as typical or classical for the genre, e.g. the repetitions, parallelisms with rising tension. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Otto_Runge#Runge_and_color https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Otto_Runge#Runge_and_c... –
- dudeinjapan 1y agoThere is a similar episode of Frasier where he and his brother Niles keep trying to get into ever more exclusive tiers of the “Empire Club” in Seattle. One of my faves. https://frasier.fandom.com/wiki/The_Club https://frasier.fandom.com/wiki/The_Club
- fp64 1y agoNot to be confused with the Hokusai woodcut print titled "The dream of the fisherman's wife" (1814) (NSFW I guess?)
- epiccoleman 1y agoyeah, i think that's pretty clearly nsfw
- buttetsu 1y agoThank you! I had no idea this existed, but it has now blown my mind. I didn't realize this kind of art existed back then and was so explicit.
- IAmBroom 1y agoThe filth you see about you today, is the same or cleaner than was imagined in the past. There's nothing new about dirty minds; male monkeys will "pay" (give treats back) to see porn of female monkeys in heat.
- froggertoaster 1y agoI've always liked the slightly different ending: "I just want my wife to be happy." And she ends up in the shack. This one is a little different!
- buttetsu 1y agoReading this story and the discussion in the thread have been a rare treat; surprises like these are why I love this site. Now I must find more of the Grimms' work!
- tetromino_ 1y agoThere's a similar Russian tale in blank verse by Pushkin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Fisherman_and_the_Fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Fisherman_and_... - probably either inspired directly by the Low German story or mediated through a version told to him in his childhood by his nurse (who in turn heard it from someone else). In the Russian version, the fisherman's wife's final and mistaken wish is to be the Queen of the Sea, with the fish as her servant.
- lif 1y agoaka the fisherman and Gordon Gecko ;)
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- alkyon 1y agoAnother interesting one: Rumpelstiltskin https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm055.html https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm055.html
- sfink 1y agoI like to think of myself as having modest desires, but this story does a good job of making me wonder: am I the fisherman or the wife? I don't want a palace, but I wouldn't want a filthy shack either. Which of my desires, for myself or for others, are truly reasonable? I'd be fine with health and happiness, but none of us is entitled to those by birthright. It's easy to read this story and think "Hah! Look at that greedy wife, I would not keep asking for more." But... would you ask for anything at all, then? And if you did and got it, would you be satisfied forever? All of history suggests that it is human to keep ratcheting it up. And on the other hand, is it really "better" to be the fisherman? He may be satisfied with living in a filthy shack, but hey, he's out fishing every day. She's living in it. Is he really in a position to judge his wife for wanting something better?
- kej 1y agoThere is a similar Dr. Seuss story that had been published in a magazine but more or less lost until being republished in a collection of shorter works in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bippolo_Seed_and_Other_Lost_Stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bippolo_Seed_and_Other_Los...
- southernplaces7 1y agoI suppose the moral of the story is that one shouldn't fuck around with talking flounders? Or for that matter kneel before every capricious whimsy of a sociopathic control freak of a wife? I don't see the AI connection in any case.
- zhainya 1y agoWas there supposed to be a connection to AI?
- southernplaces7 1y agoFrom the post itself, no, but the top comment made the connection through a guardian article, though it's a bit of a stretch for this fairy tale. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300111