In the tiny town of Regensberg, in the beautiful country of Germany, there lived a famous sausage maker. His small shop was on the bank of the Danube River. People came from near and far to eat his sausage. It was made from pigs that he kept in a pen behind his shop. The sausage maker was very jolly and he loved his pigs as much as he loved the people who came to his shop. It made him sad to kill the pigs but, after all, that’s what you have to do to make sausage.

One night the sausage maker went to bed as usual. He had a small bedroom behind the counter in his shop. When he awoke the next morning, his nose was touching the ceiling. How could this be, you ask. Well, during the night, the Danube River rose up and flooded the land. It practically filled his shop. The water lifted him right out of his bed. Since he was a rather fat man, he floated quite well. He wanted to check on his pigs so he dove down into the water and swam out a window. When he came back up, all he could see was water and a bit of the roof on his shop. So he swam over to the roof and sat there to wait for the water to go down. He could watch the fish swim by as he waited.

After a couple of days, the water did go down. He climbed off the roof and went straight to the pen to check on his pigs. What he saw made him very sad. Not a pig was in the pen! They had all floated away with the flood.

He decided he must go inside the shop to see what damage had been done. His stove had dried out and looked quite OK. His pots and pans just needed washing. But the floor was covered with dead fish that had been trapped inside when the water went out. He began to pick up the fish and put them in a pail.

Soon, his shop was clean and ready to make sausage. But he had no pigs! What was he to do?

Suddenly, and idea came into his head like a bolt of lightning. He would make sausage from the fish! With his wonderful spices, no one would know the difference. So he began to clean the fish and cook them in the spices. He soon had enough sausage made to reopen his shop.

People came from near and far when they heard the shop was open again. They had missed eating the sausage and could not wait to buy some more. He sold out of all his fish sausage the first day.

The sausage maker went to bed as usual that night. When he awoke the next morning, he heard shouting and pounding on his door. He opened the door and all the people who had bought his sausage began to yell at him.

“This sausage is terrible!”

“It does not taste the same!”

“We want our money back!”

At first the sausage maker tried to convince the people that the sausage was the same. But soon he knew it was no use. He had to admit the sausage was made from fish and not pig. When the people heard this, they started to talk among themselves.’

“Maybe it’s not so bad.”

“Perhaps we just need to get used to the flavor.”

“Fish should be much healthier for us.”

So the people went away and the sausage maker did not have to return their money.  But it was quite upsetting to him so he immediately went out and bought some new pigs with the money. He began once again to make his regular sausage.

The people came back and bought his sausage. But some asked, “Will you ever make fish sausage again?”

“Not until pigs float,” said the sausage maker.