(free translation from the Italian by Richard Causton)

Once upon a time there was a fisherman who caught but one fish daily -
better than nothing, but always just a single fish, every day.
His wife couldn’t stand it any more.
Then one day he caught a gigantic crab -
to whom could one sell such a beast?
To the King, for
a giant crab is himself
the King of Crustaceans.

But the King wanted nothing to do with it;
he thought:
“this fisherman is crazy!”
Now the King had a daughter -
the Princess, who adored all fish.
She heard about the crab
and persuaded the King to take him for herself:
he would live in the royal aquarium.

The Princess spent her days enchanted in front of this aquarium,
watching the crab with his golden shell;
soon she fell in love with him.
But there was a mystery:
where did the crab go, between midday and three?

One day a mendicant arrived,
asking for alms.
The Princess threw him some coins
but they fell in the canal.
He dived in after them,
and he swam and he swam until he came upon
a strange chamber of water and air
where one could swim and one could breathe.
He hid himself and what he saw
he would recount to the Princess.
They were to come back together the following day.

There in the chamber was a sea fairy:
she freed our crab
and from the shell emerged a handsome Prince,
who had been the victim of a curse.
The Princess hid herself in the giant shell,
and she saw the Prince and the fairy have lunch together.
Soon the fairy ordered the Prince: “back to your shell!”
but the Princess was already there.
“If the fairy sees you she will kill you!” said the Prince
“I must free you!”
“My life is bound to the feather of a gull
and the fairy takes it with her!”.

But the fairy loved singing more than she loved her spells.
The Princess had to sing, to astonish the fairy
in order to get that feather:
and we can help her too.

The fairy appeared.
“Sing!”
“Give me the feather”
“No, sing some more!”
“I love that feather’s flight…”
The feather was thrown right into the sea.
The Princess swam after it
she was starting to drown
but a crab kept her afloat.
She took the feather:
Her song had liberated the Prince:
“Stay here, with me
in the luminous water”.