“Think away,” says he, “and break your heads, and spoil your brains, if ever you had any; but listen for a moment to what I have to say.”

And all the fish turned to listen to the ersh, who is the cleverest of all the little fish, because he has a big head and a small body.

“Listen,” says the ersh.  “It is clear enough that the pike lives in this big river, and that he does not give the little fish a chance, crunches them all with his sharp teeth, and swallows them ten at a time.  I quite agree that it would be much better for everybody if he could be killed; but not one of us is strong enough for that.  We are not strong enough to kill him; but we can starve him, and save ourselves at the same time.  There’s no living in the big river while he is here.  Let all us little fish clear out, and go and live in the little rivers that flow into the big.  There the waters are shallow, and we can hide among the weeds.  No one will touch us there, and we can live and bring up our children in peace, and only be in danger when we go visiting from one little river to another.  And as for the great pike, we will leave him alone in the big river to rage hungrily up and down.  His teeth will soon grow blunt, for there will be nothing for him to eat.”

All the little fish waved their fins and danced in the water when they heard the wisdom of the ersh’s speech.  And the ersh and the roach, and the bream and the perch, and the dace and the gudgeon left the big river and swam up the little rivers between the green meadows.  And there they began again to live in peace and bring up their little ones, though the cunning fishermen set nets in the little rivers and caught many of them on their way.  From that time on there have never been many little fish in the big river.

And as for the monstrous pike, he swam up and down the great river, lashing the waters, and driving his nose through the waves, but found no food for his sharp teeth.  He had to take to worms, and was caught in the end on a fisherman’s hook.  Yes, and the fisherman made a soup of him—­the best fish soup that ever was made.  He was a friend of mine when I was a boy, and he gave me a taste in my wooden spoon.

* * * * *

Then he told them the story of other pike, and particularly of the pike that was king of a river, and made the little fish come together on the top of the water so that the young hunter could cross over with dry feet.  And he told them of the pike that hid the lover of the princess by swallowing him and lying at the bottom of a deep pool, and how the princess saw her lover sitting in the pike, when the big fish opened his mouth to snap up a little perch that swam too near his nose.  Then he told them of the big trial in the river, when the fishes chose judges, and made a case at law against the ersh, and found him guilty, and how the ersh spat in the faces of the judges and swam merrily away.