Knjigice
Fairy tale · Classic fairy tales
The Frog Prince
The old tale of a golden ball and a promise kept
Also in: Žabji kralj (Slovenian) · Žabí kráľ (Slovak)
Once there was a princess who had a golden ball. Best of all she liked to play in the shade of the old tree, beside the deep well in the courtyard.
1
One day the ball slipped out of her hands. It bounced, it rolled — and plop! — it fell into the well. The well was so deep you could not see the bottom. The princess sat down on the rim and cried.
2
"Why are you crying?" someone asked all at once. A plump green frog had poked his head out of the water. "My golden ball," she wept. "I would give anything in the world to have it back."
3
"I don't want your gold," said the frog. "I would like to be your friend. To eat from your plate and sleep on your pillow." "Yes, yes!" said the princess — while she thought to herself: he will never come anyway.
4
The frog dived down, and soon he came swimming back with the golden ball in his mouth. The princess snatched it up and ran home. "Wait!" called the frog, but she could not hear him any more.
5
That evening, while everyone was at supper, something knocked at the great door. Plip, plop. "Princess, youngest one, open the door for me!"
6
"Who is that?" asked the king. The princess told him everything, quietly and with her head down. "A promise is a promise," said the king. "What you have promised, you must keep."
7
And so the frog sat right on the table and ate from her golden plate. The princess watched him sideways. But the frog ate so comically that in the end she had to smile.
8
"Now I am tired," said the frog. "Carry me up to your room." The princess carried him up the long stairs — on a soft little cushion, very, very slowly.
9
In the night the frog said quietly: "I am so lonely, and I am so cold." The princess thought for a moment, then tucked the corner of her quilt over his back and wished him goodnight.
10
In the morning the sun came up — and the frog was nowhere to be seen. At the window stood a boy in green velvet, smiling at her. "You set me free," he said.
11
"A witch put a spell on me," he told her. "I had to be a frog until somebody kept their word and was kind to me."
12
A carriage came for the boy, with faithful Henrik driving it. When Henrik heard that his master was a boy again, the three iron bands he had bound around his heart burst apart for joy.
13
From that day on, the princess and the boy played together every single day. And the golden ball hung ever after on a cord beside the well — just in case.
14The End
