5. The Frog King

Once there was a king who had a little daughter so beautiful that the sun had never seen any one so beautiful. Close by the palace there was a dark wood, and underneath a large tree was a well. One day the little Princess sat by this well, tossing her golden ball into the air until at last it fell into the water. She began to cry bitterly. A Frog peeped out of the water and said, “What will you give me, King’s Little Daughter, if I get your ball for you?” “I will give you anything,” she said, “my pearls, my jewels, my golden crown.” “If you will let me be your playmate and sit by your side at table, and eat out of your golden plate, and sleep in your little snow-white bed, I will bring your ball to you again.” “I promise all,” she said, thinking that a Frog could not live with people. In a moment the Frog plunged into the water head foremost, caught the ball, and swam back with it in his mouth and threw it on the grass to her. She picked up her pretty plaything and ran away with it, heedless of the Frog’s cry, “Wait! Wait!” She did not listen, but ran home as fast as she could and forgot all about her promise to the Frog.

The next day as the royal family was seated at dinner, something came creeping, splish, splash, splish, splash, up the marble staircase. Then a knock was heard at the door, and a voice said, “King’s Little Daughter, open the door for me.” When she opened the door she saw the Frog. She screamed with fright, and slammed the door in his face. When she told her father of her promise to let the Frog be her playmate, the King said, “What you have promised you must keep. Go, and let him in!” She opened the door and the Frog hopped in and followed her step by step to the chair. “Lift me up!” he cried. She did not like to do this, but the King said, “What you have promised you must keep.” When the Frog was on the chair, he wanted to be on the table and eat out of the golden plate, and when she started to go upstairs he asked her to let him rest on her snow-white bed. She was afraid of the cold, clammy Frog, and she began to cry again. But the King said, “What you have promised you must keep. Ugly though he is, did he not help you when you were in distress, and will you despise him now?” So the Princess took hold of him with her fingers, carried him upstairs, and put him in a corner. When he pleaded again to rest on her snow-white bed, she became angry and took hold of him and threw him with all her might against the wall. “Now will you be quiet, hateful Frog?” she said. But when he fell to the floor suddenly he changed from a frog into a beautiful Prince with kind and shining eyes looking at her. He told her how he had been changed into a Frog by a very wicked fairy, and how no one but she could get him out of the well and change him into a King’s son again, and that when they grew older they would be married and live together in his kingdom. The next morning when the sun was up, a carriage appeared drawn by eight white horses, and when the King and Queen gave their consent for the Princess to go, she was glad to be the Queen and live in the Prince’s beautiful kingdom. But she never forgot what her father had told her, “What you have promised you must keep.”