Jerry Griswold on Frog Prince

In his book The Meanings of Beauty and the Beast:  A Handbook, Jerry Griswold analyzes not only the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, but other Animal Bridegroom tales for comparison. One of the more commonly known ones is The Frog Prince, more specifically the version found in the brothers Grimm.

 One of the most common questions that arises with this version is the fact that the prince is NOT transformed by a kiss, a motif that has mysteriously become associated with this fairy tale, but when the princess hurls the frog against a wall. It was very uncharacteristic of the Grimms to publish tales in which such behavior, from a princess who otherwise tends to come across as being selfish and spoiled anyway, is rewarded.

The most common interpretation of this is that the frog, in its slimy and disgusting self, represents the idea of sex to someone who isn't ready yet-Griswold mentions children learning the facts of life and reacting with revulsion, but other scholars (I think Marina Warner, and others) have pointed out that during a time when young girls were given away in marriage to older men, not only were they not given a choice, but they may not have been emotionally and pysically ready for marriage. And really, a frog wanting to share your plate and your bed would not be especially pleasant, promise or no promise.

In comparing this story to Beauty and the Beast, Griswold points out that BATB (in his mind) is a story of transferring Beauty's affections from her father to the Beast, and Frog Prince could be seen in the same light. Again we have a daughter with a father but no mother figure in the story, and it is the father who reminds his daughter to keep her promise. When the princess resists allowing the frog to stay in her bed, it is his threatening to tell her father that prompts her to throw him against the wall. Thus, Griswold suggests, the act of violence could be seen as an act of independance. I had never considered this interpretation but it's a very interesting one. But once again I am uncomfortable with the notion of transferring one kind of love to gain another-since when can one love grow dependant on another love dying? Like I've said before, your relationship with your parents should change as you grow older, but not diminish. So it's not just the idea of growing independant from your parents that bothers me but also Griswold's wording-referrring to the princess, "having broken with her father, she is ready for a partner, and the frog changes into a prince" (emphasis mine). She disobeyed her father, she didn't break all ties with him.

Griswold also includes this interpretation, but it bothers me that this is only a footnote, because I personally like it a lot better: given that the title refers to the Frog and not the princess, maybe it's more about his maturation than hers. "From this perspective, the Grimm tale is an account of a bad date. He acts like an animal with her. He is too forward and pushy...Finally, when she forcibly throws him across the room, he is given the 'no' that means 'no' and learns that his animal and aggressive manner is not the way to be with a woman. So, he changes into a gentleman."

Once again Griswold mentions the idea that the Animal Bridegroom tales represent the Otherness in a heterosexual relationship, but in an exaggerated way.

I agree with that concept but have one more bone to pick with Griswold: he mentions at the end of this chapter the story "The Pig King" by Straparola, saying "the enchanted Prince is otherwise human iscept for a porcine snout and the pleasure he takes in wallowing in the mud." I double checked the text on the Surlalune site, and this is simply untrue. The child is cursed: "the son whom she shall conceive shall be born in the skin of a pig, with a pig's ways and manners." The baby prince would "put his little snout and his little paws in his mother's lap, and she, moved by natural affection, would caress him by stroking his bristly back with her hand, and embracing and kissing him as if he had been of human form. Then he would wag his tail and give other signs to show that he was conscious of his mother's affection."

Clearly the child was fully in the form of a pig. This is the second major error I've caught in this book, but the first is a very widespread misconception dealing with the translations of the Villeneuve version of BATB. In Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale, Betsey Hearne quotes from an Ernest Dowson translation which is significantly different than Jack Zipes', and most academic sources on the internet, and many books as well, quote from Hearne. I've brought up this issue before but I'll mention it again now that my readership has grown: does anyone know anything about the Dowson translation? Or the actual French version? Or why else there is such a disparity between versions of the Villeneuve version, mainly how sexual the Beast's advances were to Beauty?

Frog Prince illustrations by Walter Crane

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Ruth Bottigheimer's New History of Fairy Tales

If you want a book that's not too long or academic but still gives you plenty of food for thought, read Fairy Tales: A New History by Ruth B. Bottigheimer. This book challenges the commonly accepted notion that fairy tales have an oral history, but instead have a history that can be traced back through published books.

Bottigheimer goes in reverse chronological order, exploring the roots behind the major fairy tale publishers, proving that the roots of their fairy tales were really a previous collection of published tales, not actual peasants. First she started with the Grimms. I actually found this section to be a little frustrating. If you've read anything about the Grimms published recently, it's common knowledge that their informants were their middle class family friends and not actual German peasants. I've posted on John Ellis' One Fairy Story Too Many, which is the book that really first revealed to the English speaking world the truth about the Grimms' collection, but other books published since then seem to give the impression that they're the first to deliver the shocking news and it gets a little tiring when each author claims to be the one exposing the shocking truth. Bottigheimer spends too much time giving you the false scenario which is "commonly believed" about the Grimms traipsing through the German countryside and searching for tales, which gets old and comes across as a little condescending to the reader. It almost weakens her arguments, because few people, especially today, believe this given scenario exactly, so it sets you up on the defensive rather than being receptive to hearing what she has to say. Even before Ellis, not everyone was completely ignorant-in my last post, I shared what Sokolov published in 1950-that it would be foolish to assume that the tales originated from the people as a whole and obviously had an author at some point.

I enjoyed the other sections more. As I've lamented about before, if my library is any indication, books about the Grimms are plentiful, but reading about Perrault is limited to chapters in other books, and it's virtually impossible to read about Straparola and Basile without spending a fortune on more obscure books, so I was very interested to read about them. (But for the dedicated, the wonderful Heidi Anne Heiner of Surlalune has a Basile's Pentamerone page and a Straparola's Facetious Nights, where the tales are available to read in full text! I have determined to read more of them...) Basically, in the timeline of published fairy tale collections-Straparola in the 1550s, Basile in the 1620s, then Perrault (and Lheritier and others) in France in the late 1600s/early 1700s, and finally Grimms in 19th century Germany-for each major collection, the previous collections were in print, widely circulated, and translated into multiple languages, so that each author was aware of the tales of the other authors and intentionally (Basile, the French authors) or unintentionally (Grimms, who may have been somewhat deceptive but really did think they were preserving the German tradition in their tale collection) created their own versions of the previously existing stories in their own collections. Bottigheimer provides examples of the tales that evolved under each author's pen, from the well known (Sleeping Beauty) to the obscure. Even Straparola's were based off of previous story collections, but Bottigheimer also makes a very bold claim: "It was Giovan Francesco Straparola who created rise fairy tales."

Giovan Francesco Straparola

             Giambattista Basile

Bottigheimer defines rise and restoration fairy tales, which are very helpful terms when categorizing: a rise tale is one in which the protagonists begins in poverty and acquires a royal spouse and wealth through magical means. A restoration tale features a character that begins in an elevated state, is brought low through some humbling circumstance, and rises back to power and wealth at the end-for example, Donkeyskin, who begins as a Princess, is forced to make herself ugly and work as a servant because of her father's incestual passions, and ends up as a rightful princess. Some longer fairy tales may be a rise and a restoration within the same tale. These terms can help us understand the history of a tale and how it is created to meet the demands of the audience-Straparola's tales were written in Venice at a time when there was lots of poverty, and naturally the poor would be enticed by a rise tale, and his collection featured many rise tales. Yet Basile wrote his tales for the upper class, who dispised the poor, and in his collection, "the vulgar masses are rejected and depicted as repellent." There are a few rise tales in his collection, but Bottigheimer tells us they are rare exceptions. Yet restoration tales abound, which is something his audience can relate to.


According to Bottigheimer, "dig where we may, no rise fairy tales can be found in layers of literary remains before Straparola." Yet what about the ancient Chinese tale of Sheh Hsien, from the 8th century, which features a poor mistreated girl, forced to do all the work, who with the help of a magic fish acquires beautiful clothes and gold shoes, with which she was discovered by the King, who married her? How is this not a rise tale? Bottigheimer doesn't mention this version of Cinderella.

Here's where things get sticky-Bottigheimer states that, though many motifs common in fairy tales may have been around since antiquity, Straparola was the one who really created the genre. Yet you really have to look at the history of each tale itself. Beauty and the Beast is usually traced back to the myth Cupid and Psyche. Yes, Cupid and Psyche is a myth and not a fairy tale, but it is still part of the history of the story-drawing lines to define genres can be helpful but doesn't give us the full picture.

Bottigheimer's implication is that, in creating the rise fairy tale, Straparola created the genre we know of as fairy tales, but what about fairy tales that aren't rise tales or can't be necessarily traced back to Straparola? Surlalune traces the Frog King back to the 13th century, as well as a Scottish version from 1549, both before Straparola. What about those tales that don't even necessarily end happily, such as Swan Maiden tales? While we now create categories and criteria, the tellers of the tales most likely didn't distinguish between rise and restoration tales, fairy tales or tales about fairies, but simply told stories. While I think most people, even those writing on fairy tales, underestimate the significance of Straparola and Basile and published books in the history of the tales, you can't say everything started with Straparola. But certainly fairy tales as we know them would be significantly different without him.

Illustrations of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast by Warwick Goble

The Enchanted Frog

This German tale is an interesting (and at times disturbing...) combination of "Beauty and the Beast" with "The Frog Prince". From Carl and Theodor Colshorn (from Ashliman's Frog King page)

Once upon a time there was a merchant who had three daughters, but his wife was with God. Once he planned a journey across the ocean to a foreign land in order to bring back gold and other valuable things. He consoled his weeping children, saying, "I will bring back something beautiful for you. What do you want?"
The oldest asked for a silk dress, "and it must be made of three kinds of silk."
The second desired a feathered hat, "and it must have three kinds of feathers."
The youngest finally said, "Bring me a rose, dear father, and it must be fresh and have three colors."
The merchant promised to do this, kissed his daughters, and departed.

After arriving in the foreign land, he ordered the dress of three kinds of silk for his oldest daughter and the hat with three kinds of feathers for the second one. Both were soon finished, and of seldom splendor. Then he sent messengers throughout the entire country to seek a three-colored rose for his youngest and dearest daughter, but they all returned empty handed, even though the merchant had promised a high price, and even though there were more roses there than there are daisies here.

Sadly he set off for home and was downhearted the entire voyage. This side of the ocean he came to a large garden in which there was nothing but roses and roses. He went inside and looked, and behold, on a slender bush in the middle of the garden there was a three-colored rose. Filled with joy, he plucked it, and was about to leave, when he was magically frozen in place.
A voice behind him cried out, "What do you want in my garden?" He looked up. A large frog was sitting there on the bank of a clear pond staring at him with its goggle-eyes. It said, "You have broken my dear rose. This will cost you your life unless you give me your youngest daughter to wife."

The merchant was terrified. He begged and he pleaded, but all to no avail, and in the end he had to agree to marry his dearest daughter to the ugly frog. He could now move his feet, and he freely walked out of the garden. The frog called out after him, "In seven days I shall come for my wife!"

With great sorrow the merchant gave his youngest daughter the fresh rose and told her what had happened. When the terrible day arrived, she crept under her bed, for she did not at all want to go. At the hour of noon a stately carriage drove up. The frog sent his servants into the house, and they immediately went to the bedroom and dragged the screaming maiden from beneath her bed, then carried her to the carriage. The horses leaped forward, and a short time later they were in the blossoming rose garden. In the middle of the garden, immediately behind the clear pond, there stood a small house. They took the bride into the house and laid her on a soft bed. The frog, however, sprang into the water.

Darkness fell, and after the maiden had awakened from her unconsciousness, she heard the frog outside singing wonderfully sweet melodies. As midnight approached, he sang ever more sweetly, and came closer and closer to her. At midnight the bedroom door opened, and the frog jumped onto her bed. However, he had touched her with his sweet songs, and she took him into bed with her and warmly covered him up.
The next morning when she opened her eyes, behold, the ugly frog was now the handsomest prince in the world. He thanked her with all his heart, saying, "You have redeemed me and are now my wife!" And they lived long and happily together.

Image of rose from here, The Frog Prince by Charles Folkard

Robin McKinley's The Door in the Hedge

In my opinion, Robin McKinley's earliest works are her best, and The Door in the Hedge, from 1981 (shortly after her first published work and my absolute favorite, Beauty,) is no exception. This book is a collection of short stories, including:

The Stolen Princess-An original story (as far as I know) that sort of has a changeling element to it (although the narration distinctly claims it is NOT to be confused with changelings, those who are interested in changeling stories would probably also be interested in this).

The Princess and the Frog-A retelling of "The Frog Prince." After rereading it I realized how much my short story was influenced by this version...

The Hunting of the Hind-another original story, but it fits in well with traditional princess fairy tales and is very enjoyable.

The Twelve Dancing Princess-As can be guessed, a retelling of the fairy tale by the same name. One of the most natural questions that arises when reading the Grimm version (at least for me) is, why did the underground kindgom need to be destroyed? Was it actually evil, other than the fact that replacing twelve pairs of shoes daily can get very costly? McKinley adds her own touch to the tale by explaining why the underground kingdom is evil, and the toll that the curse takes on the princesses, which I find very satisfying.

This book was intended for a young adult audience and the stories are appropriate for children. While reading I was mindful of things such as-the fairies portrayed in the first story are essentially good and unlike historical fairies at all; and the stereotype of the innate goodness of royalty is definitely enforced. But considering the audience I don't think anything is inappropriate. Yes, real life is not like these stories, but there's nothing wrong with a little escapism now and then. McKinley's writing is truly enjoyable and this is perfect for a bit of light reading.

Stevie Smith-The Frog Prince

"The Frog Prince"

I am a frog
I live under a spell
I live at the bottom
of a green well.

And here I must wait
Until a maiden places me
On her royal pillow
And kisses me
In her father's palace.

The story is familiar
Everyone knows it well

But do other enchanted people feel as nervous
As I do? The stories do not tell.

Ask if they would be happier
When the changes come
As already they are fairly happy
in a frog's doom?

I have been a frog now
For a hundred years
And in this time
I have not shed many tears

I am happy, I like the life
Can swim for many a mile
(When I have hopped to the river)
And am forever agile.

And the quietness
Yes, I like to be quiet
I am habituated
To a quiet life,
But always when I think these thoughts
As I sit in my well
Another though comes to me and says
It is part of the spell

To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment.

Says, it will be heavenly
To be set free
Cries, heavenly, the girl who disenchants
And the royal time, heavenly
And I think it will be.

Come then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people can be heavenly.



Image by P J Lynch

Jim Henson at Museum of Science and Industry

Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry currently has a special Jim Henson exibit through Jan. 23. The exibit itself was great-it showed his early career, lots of storyboards and original puppets, but then ended abruptly after Dark Crystal. I was disappointed I wouldn't get to learn more about the Muppet movies or my beloved Labyrinth.
The Muppets are no strangers to fairy tales. Jim had done an early commercial with a Hansel and Gretel theme, where the children survive the horrors of the furnace because of some fabric product they were promoting.


The characters also did Frog Prince and Hey, Cinderella:




And I've already shared Muppet Theatre Classic Fairytales, and Surlalune has featured many Muppet News Flash Fairy Tales.

The Museum of Science and Industry is also home to Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle. Pictures from the website; read about it there or in my archives.

The Frog

Image by Anne Anderson

"“Do you enjoy it?”
“Enjoy what?”
“Being a frog.”
The frog thought for a moment. “I suppose. It has its ups and downs. Do you always enjoy being human?”
“I guess not. But I don’t have frog-like characteristics, and you certainly have human characteristics.”
“Yes, I suppose speech is a human characteristic, and intelligence is thought to be one too. I do miss having intelligent conversations, but I enjoybeing a frog, I guess, just as much as any frog."

The above is an exerpt from a short story version of "The Frog Prince" I wrote a while ago, in early high school. Usually I'm very wary of "fan fiction," becuase generally the writing is pretty bad. Reading over my past writing is a mix of shame and "actually, that's kind of good..." but I'm not the best judge of my own writing. But as I want to keep all of my fairy tale notes and things together on this blog, I'm including the link to the story on googledocs. (There are some obvious typos, and some edits I could have made, but I think I'm electronically challenged, because I can't figure out how to alter the text on googledocs...)

Eras of Disney

Disney can be quite controversial. Some people love Disney and everything about Disney-others despise it/him. Since Disney has made many many movies over almost a hundred years, and the characteristics of the movies are very different depending on when they're from, let's distinguish within Disney itself. For the sake of simplification, I'm only discussing Disney Princess movies.

Walt Disney himself died in 1966. Before he died, he had created 3 complete Princess movies- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), and Sleeping Beauty (1957.) Disney had been a leader and innovator in the world of animation. It's these three Princesses that are often accused of having the most negative female stereotypes-evil female villains and helpless heroines. Yet I have to say, these movies adhere the closest to the plots on which they are based. And some people have attacked Cinderella for being made more helpless than the Grimm version, but Disney didn't base his Cinderella off of Grimm, but on Perrault's (and either way, whether Cinderella got help from talking mice and a fairy godmother, or a dead mother's spirit, she always has help in SOME form.)

There was a long break from Princess movies. Then Disney had another golden age in the late 1980s- early 90s, with The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Aladdin (1992). Feminism had spread and filmmakers were more conscious of how they presented females. Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine definitely have more spunk and sense of adventure than their predecessors (although, as I've pointed out before, Ariel is reeeeally desperate to marry a guy she's never actually met. Interesting that the next two heroines on the scene are anything but anxious to marry just for the sake of marrying or for looks), but the plots of the stories differ more greatly from their sources. Interestingly, none of the movies created during this time were based on Grimm stories. And yes, Pocahontas and Mulan are in there somewhere, but they were never as popular. I say, Pocahontas is a travesty because they completely alter a true, historical story, which is different than altering a version of a fairy tale that isn't exactly authoritative on its own. Mulan should probably be more popular, but there's just only so many Princesses you can fit onto a t-shirt, you know?

Then there's Tiana from Princess and the Frog, and supposedly Rapunzel's coming. In the grand scheme of things they should probably be lumped together with the second batch of Princesses, except that Michael Eisner is no longer CEO of Disney. You could say that they've continued and expanded the trend of taking creative liberties, since Princess and the Frog hardly even pretends to be a retelling of The Frog Prince. And I think of the older movies differently in my mind because I was very young when the above came out, and not so young any more. Plus, so much has changed about Disney since then too. The Disney channel has just regressed so far. The popular shows and movies may sport good messages, in theory, but the scripts and acting are just TERRIBLE. Everybody knows that, since the second Golden Age of Disney, Pixar became the new Disney, and they have stayed away from Princessy fairy tales or anything that centers too much around romance. So they might suffer a little in the 4-6 year old girl department, who will forever request birthday presents from the Disney store, but overall their reputation spikes. (Not to bash the Disney store. I should open a museum for all the Belle products I own. Including a lamp in the shape of Belle, in addition to a glow-in-the-dark Beauty and the Beast lampshade. Why light your room with anything neutral when Disney products are available? I kid, but only sort of.)

So the next time someone bashes Disney, ask them to define which part of Disney they mean. And you could point out that taking creative liberties is exactly what the brothers Grimm and other major fairy tale collectors did too. But then you can criticize the particular creative liberties they took, and their reasons for them. But to classify all of Disney as one large entity is almost like lumping all fairy tales together. Well, bad example-people do that, but they're misinformed.

Another Frog Prince movie

The Princess and the Frog the other day reminded me of this version (youtube link)(imdb), from 1986, which I'd sort of forgotten about until now. I love youtube so much (even when they don't have an embedding code). The huge frog always freaked me out.

I noticed similarities to Beauty and the Beast as I re watched it (although I see Beauty and the Beast everywhere). It is technically an Animal Bridegroom tale, and therefore related anyway, but some alterations they made were even more like Beauty and the Beast.

In the Grimm tale, the frog asks to share the Princess' plate and bed in return for fetching the ball, to which the Princess agrees, but later has to be forced to keep her promised by her father. In this version, the frog doesn't make any requests (although I do notice now that in the Grimm he also wants to be her "companion and playfellow," which is the most this children's version hints at). This Princess, Zora, has no problem being a friend to a frog-more like Beauty than Zora's predecessors. And then the near-death of the Frog near the end? Totally like Beauty and the Beast. Also, in one of the few fairy tales that doesn't have an evil same-sex sibling to contrast the hero, they added one.

And the scene at the end? From rags (sort of) to a poofy blue ball gown and dancing with a prince? Totally Cinderella.

Yet with the insistence on keeping promises over and over, that reflects the Grimms' moral (even though Zora doesn't specifically keep a promise she had made to Ribbit). The golden ball is also unique to The Frog Prince. I must have loved this movie as a kid because my sister and I watched it over and over. Though low-budget and slightly bizarre, it was still fun to re watch.

Princess and the Frog

I caught parts of Disney's The Princess and the Frog today while babysitting. I hadn't been especially enthusiastic about it and hadn't planned on ever spending money to see it, but was still curious.

A lot of fairy tale enthusiasts hadn't been crazy about this movie, since the plot (which was all pretty much given away in the previews anyway) was so completely unlike the fairy tale it should hardly share the same title (basically the same, anyway). But this is the only Disney fairy tale to acknowledge the existence of itself-it really isn't a retelling of the Frog Prince, but a story that is influenced by the older tale, which helped me forgive all the creative liberties.

I noticed they were deliberately trying not to fall into the typical Disney Princess stereotypes-this young woman had business ambitions and didn't care about romance (just like BELLE was smart and loved to read and wanted adventure and not a jerk husband like Gaston).

The first thing the heroine does after she meets the frog-besides scream-is throw things at him and slam a book on his head. I wondered if this was a subtle nod to earlier versions where the Princess didn't bring about the frog's transformation by a kiss, but a violent act, such as throwing him against the wall.

By the way, the concept of the girl turning into a frog instead of the other way around has already been done in The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka, who has done some really great fairy tale parodies for kids.