The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish

[a] Mark Azadovsky wrote monumental articles on Pushkin's sources, his nurse "Arina Rodionovna", and the "Brothers Grimm" demonstrating that tales recited to Pushkin in his youth were often recent translations propagated "word of mouth to a largely unlettered peasantry", rather than tales passed down in Russia, as John Bayley explains.

[4] Still, in Bayley's estimation, the derivative nature does not diminish the reader's ability to appreciate "The Fisherman and the Fish" as "pure folklore", though at a lesser scale than other masterpieces.

[5] He seriously studied genuine folktales, and literary style was spawned from absorbing them, but conversely, popular tellings were influenced by Pushkin's published versions also.

[5] At any rate, after Norbert Guterman's English translation of Asfaneyev's "The Goldfish" (1945) appeared,[8] Stith Thompson included it in his One Hundred Favorite Folktales, so this version became the referential Russian variant for the ATU 555 tale type.

When he asks that his wife be made the Ruler of the Sea, the fish cures her greed by putting everything back to the way it was before, including the broken trough.

[13] The fable is referenced in book three of Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, when Mitya compares Alyosha's arrival to the fish's return and ability to grant wishes.