In the Brothers Grimm fairytale The Fisherman and his Wife, an impoverished fisherman lives with his wife in a filthy run-down shack by the sea. Every day he goes to the sea to fish and every day his pickings are meagre. One day the fisherman catches a mighty flounder who speaks to him, revealing he is an enchanted prince. The prince begs the fisherman to throw him back into the sea and the fisherman does so.
On returning home the fisherman’s wife asks why he had not asked the prince for a reward for letting him go and encourages him down to the sea to ask the prince for a nice cottage as a reward.