playmate, to let him eat off her golden plate and drink out of her
golden cup and sleep in her little snow-white bed. The princess promised
everything. But no sooner had the frog brought her the ball than she
scampered away, heedless of his cries. The next day as the royal family
sat at dinner a knock was heard at the door. The princess opened and
beheld the ugly toad claiming admittance. She screamed with fright and
hastily shut the door in his face. But when the king, her father, had
questioned her, he said, "What you have promised, you must keep"; and
she obeyed her father, though it was sorely against her inclination to
do so. That was right, children, was it not? One must always obey, even
if one does not like what one is told to do. So the toad was brought in
and lifted to the table, and he ate off the little golden plate and
drank out of the golden cup. And when he had had enough, he said, "I am
tired now, put me into your little snow-white bed." And again when she
refused her father said: "What you have promised you must keep. Ugly
though he is, he helped you when you were in distress, and you must not
despise him now." And the upshot of the story is that the ugly toad,
having been thrown against the wall, was changed into a beautiful
prince, and of course some time after the prince and the princess were
married.
The naturalistic element of the story is the changing of the prince into
a toad and back again from a toad into a prince. Children are very fond
of disguises. It is one of their greatest pleasures to imagine things to
be other than they are. And one of the chief attractions of such stories
as the one we have related is that they cater to the fondness of the
little folks for this sort of masquerading. The moral elements of the
story are obvious. They should be touched on in such a manner as not to
divert the interest from the main story.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account