Once upon a time, in a large lake, there lived a trout and her child. Every day the little trout and its mother swam a little further away from the shore. Once, however, the little trout felt like swimming far away. She swam away all alone. She swam and swam until it came to the other side of the lake. She looked around and saw a huge bean growing on the shore. "Hello, you bean monster!" shouts the cheeky little trout, laughing.
"Hello, you tiny fish!" the bean called back. When the little trout heard this, she was so annoyed that tears came to her eyes. Quickly she swam back to her mother. "Mother, mother!" she cried, "I swam all the way to the big bean, but she called me 'tiny little fish.' Why does she laugh at me, am I not already big and strong?"
"Well," said the mother trout, "perhaps you have offended her?"
"Why no, mama, what do you think of me!"
"Well, let's swim to the bean and ask her."
Together they swam to the other side of the lake. Even from a distance they saw the big bean standing on the shore.
"Good afternoon, dear Mrs. Bean," called the trout mother.
"Good afternoon, dear Mrs. Trout," the bean greeted back.
"Tell me, dear Mrs. Bean, why did you insult my little daughter and call her a tiny fish?"
"Oh," said the bean, "I thought that was the proper thing to do. Tit for tat, as they say. Your little daughter called me a bean monster, and I called her a tiny fish."
Then the cheeky little trout was ashamed and quickly dived under. From that day on, however, she always thought carefully about what she called other people.

Fairy tale from Ukraine,  translated by S. Jaenike, after: D. Jaenike, Kindermärchen für Gross und Klein, © Mutabor Verlag