Chapter 1
back when wishing for what you wanted was a thing
In the old days, there lived a king whose daughters were all very handsome. The youngest was especially beautiful. When she stepped outside, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter.
Near the king’s castle there was a gloomy forest. Deep in those woods under an old linden tree was a well. The king’s youngest daughter loved to go exploring. She would often sit at the edge of the well before she returned home. If ever things seemed dull, she would take out a golden ball, throw it high in the air, and let gravity pull it back to her. This was her favorite pastime.
Now it happened one day that the golden ball did not fall back into the maiden’s hands. It dropped to the ground near the edge of the well and rolled in. She followed it with her eyes as it sank into the water. The well was deep. It was so deep that she could not see the bottom. When she realized the golden ball was gone, she became distraught. She wept softly at first; but, since no one was around, her cries grew louder. “How could I let this happen!” she scolded herself.
Then she heard a voice. Quickly she held her breath to muffle her sobs. A kind-hearted and bubbly voice spoke again. This time she could hear words in the sweet sound, “Do tell! What’s the matter?”
Her eyes were filled with tears, so she had no idea who she spoke to. She just shared earnest distress with someone she could not yet see. “The golden ball got away from me. It fell into the well and sank to the bottom!”
“Yes, I saw. But why are you crying?”
“I can think of no crueler curse. A precious item is gone, I know right where it is, and I’ll never ever be able to retrieve it!”
“No, you never will. But do you really want to be getting so worked up about this?”
“Oh—,” she yelped. The princess had heard an insult. She hastily cleared away her tears to see who could be so insensitive, “—a slimy frog! Is that you who speaks?”
“Yes, I’m speaking,” croaked a frog whose thick head and bulging eyes were just above the water, “but I’m not so sure you’re listening.“
The frog hopped toward the princess. “It is quite true that you will never be able to retrieve your ball, but that doesn’t mean the ball has to stay down there forever.”
The streams of tears froze on her cheeks. Her eyes grew bigger and brighter. “Do you mean—”
“Yes, of course,” belched the happy frog, “I’m telling you I’ll fetch it for you!”
A somewhat peculiar and entirely lovely sound sprang from the princess’ throat. It was a mixture of sounds: part laughter and part sigh of relief. Never did such a joyous noise ring through so gloomy a forest.
The sun itself became curious. It squinted its eye to see better. “Who could that be?” wondered the sun as it tried to peer through the thick leafy forest branches.
“Bless you gallant amphibian!” the princess cried out. “Oh, bless you!!”
“Indeed, my dear, this is the only thing left we don’t yet know. After I retrieve that which is yours, what exactly is it that you plan to bless me with?”
Chapter 2
A princess has lost her ball in the well. A frog offered to retrieve it, but first he wanted to know what she would offer him in return.
“I will give you whatever you like, my dear frog!” She was quite excited. “You can have any one of my finest garments.”
She blurted this out before thinking of all the extra work such a gift would require. A skilled tailor would need days to make one of her dresses fit the frog’s squatty form.
She thought again. “Or how about one of my pearls? I have many jewels, too. You can take any one of them. I’ll even give you the golden crown that Father has me wear on my head, if that is what you want?”
“Your clothes, pearls, jewels, and golden crown are not for me,” answered the frog, “but I wonder if you could find an open space in your heart for a little puddle-splasher like me?”
The frog’s tone of voice changed. He did not seem to be talking to the princess anymore. It was more like he was talking to himself: “You and I could be friends. We could play games and tell stories. I could sit next to you at meals. We would eat from the same plate and drink from one cup. We could do everything together—every moment of the day! Then, whenever we grew tired, you could make a place for me by the pillow on your bed. I suppose beds in the king’s castle are fitted with silk sheets, aren’t they? Moss and rocks are nice enough, but there must be better ways to make a bed in this world. I wonder if—”
“Froggy-y-y-y-y? Oh, Froggy dear!” interrupted the princess. She blinked her eyes three times. “We were talking about my golden ball.”
“Yes! Yes, indeed. I was just saying, if you promise me a place at your side, then I will gladly retrieve your glittering ball from these murky waters. I’ll search it out right away, and I’ll never stop looking until your joy is returned to you.”
“Thank you!” she cried out, hopping up and down a bit like a frog herself. “I promise it all, whatever your heart desires.”
At the sound of these words, the frog’s chubby face slipped down into the water. His body became a shimmering shadow. Then he disappeared.
With the frog gone, it became quiet again. The princess was smiling and shaking her head. “What in the world was that silly frog chattering on and on about? Playing games… sitting at the royal table… sharing a cup and sleeping on silk sheets… what nonsense!! Has the poor little thing forgotten that he’s a frog?”
A short while before, she had been so distraught. Now, the youngest king’s daughter was calm. Her heartbeat slowed and she thought about the order of things in our world. “Frogs sit at the water’s edge and croak endlessly at other frogs about... only frogs know what. The trees stretch their branches wider each year to grow a few more leaves, and then they just drop them all on the forest floor. The sun reclines in the sky and shines on absolutely anyone at all whenever it possibly can. And me? Well, it appears I’ll see my golden ball brought back to me one more time.”
Chapter 3
A princess had promised the frog anything he wished. He only needed to find her golden ball at the bottom of the well.
The princess watched and waited. A dark shadow arose. She saw it coming toward her. Then a flash of gold broke through the water’s surface. The frog’s dive had been successful.
The king’s daughter was overjoyed to see her pretty plaything again. She snatched it up and held it tightly to her chest in both hands. She rested it just under her chin.
The ball was sticky with frog snot, but she did not notice. Her shirt was getting damp with well water, but she did not notice that either. Tiny rivulets ran down her forearms making droplets on her elbows—this she noticed. She pulled out her handkerchief, dried the ball and then her forearms.
What the princess did next is a puzzle. You might think that a cherished possession lost once should be held twice as tightly. This, however, was not what happened. The princess had had this ball for as long as she could remember. In all that time, she had only ever played one game with it. Throwing her ball was not merely a favorite pastime; throwing was the only thing she had ever done with this ball.
Without a second thought, she flung the ball straight up in the air. This was not merely an idle action to enliven a dull moment. This was a celebration. Excitement and relief launched the ball to a height it had never known. It shot through the forest branches and reached the blue sky above.
At the peak of it is trajectory, a ray a light from the still squinting sun flashed against the spinning orb. The glare reflected a beam downward that glistened on the princess’ upturned face. “I knew it,” chuckled the sun, “I knew it was her who had laughed before. Only the mirth of our king’s youngest daughter could escape such a gloomy wood.”
At that same moment, the dark watery eyes of the frog lit up like two jet moons. He saw the flash in the princess’ eyes. “A marvel meant to be told that words can never express!” whispered a frog.
My Dear Reader,
I have spoken to the sun, the princess, and the frog about this exact moment. They all three remember it quite vividly. Interestingly enough, not one of them could tell me what happened next. How did the ball fall? Did it come straight down, or did it knock into branches? Did our hero catch it in her hands, or did she pick it up after it hit the ground?
Either the fall to earth was entirely trivial, or it was terribly important. One or the other must be true, because no one involved can remember a single thing about it.
- Your Faithful Storyteller
Her joy returned. The princess ran home.
“Wait, wait!“ cried the frog. “Pick me up and carry me with you. I can’t hop as fast as you can run!“
The little frog called out in vain. It’s not that the princess didn’t hear him. She did. What happened here is what happens everywhere all the time. No one listens to frogs. They bellow and we hear them, but we never listen. This is a general rule that applies to all of us; princesses are no exception.
Chapter 4
The princess made a promise to a friendly frog. Then she ran home leaving the frog behind.
The next evening, the youngest king’s daughter dined in the great hall with her father, her sisters, and all the prominent members of the royal court. She was eating from a plate with gold trim, when there came a split-splat sound up the marble stairs outside. Then came a knocking at the door. A voice cried out, “Youngest daughter to the king, let me in!”
She rose from her seat and ran to see who it could be. When she opened the door, there was the frog sitting outside. “Hello princess!” he croaked.
She slammed the door shut without saying a word and walked briskly back to her seat. She felt very uneasy and the king noticed. Her heart was beating quickly when her father asked, “My child, what are you afraid of? Was there a giant standing at the door ready to carry you away?”
“No giant,” she answered, “just a horrid frog!”
“A frog?” puzzled the king. “Well, what did the frog want?”
“It’s a long story. I suppose it all starts with the golden ball. You see, yesterday, it got away from me and ended up at the bottom of that well under the old linden tree. I was so vexed! I fear I may have said something I shouldn’t have.”
“Hah! Cursing toads now, are we? My sweet child, you mustn’t let them push your buttons! All the same, perhaps I should talk some sense into this creature’s bumpy head. What kind of puddle-prancing nitwit would ever think to take something so precious and throw it in a well?”
The king got more worked up the more he thought about it. “Outrageous!” he exploded. “Scribe, scribe! Write down this royal decree: the kingdom’s swamp dwellers have become ornery and uncouth—we must teach them grace and decorum AT ONCE!”
“No, Father,” she called out, “you’ve got it all wrong. The frog didn’t throw my ball in the well. I did.”
“You did?” exclaimed the king, “Then why were you cursing at the frog?”
“No, Father, I never said anything nasty. I made him a promise.”
“A promise?”
“Oh dear,” chortled the oldest daughter, “Little Sissy has gone and made a pact with a pollywog!”
The middle sister clenched her eyes tight in a fit of silent laughter.
“Well, you would have done the same!” insisted the youngest. Anger was welling up inside. She had never in all her life said anything inappropriate to a frog, but she could think of a few choice words for her sisters.
The middle daughter managed to compose herself. She opened her eyes wide and asked in all earnestness, “But how does it work? I mean…did you have to shake the frogs tiny little four-fingered hand?” The ridiculous image of a frog and a human clasping hands caught everyone by surprise. Now soldiers, who are trained to foresee every possible scenario, are rarely caught off guard. Aside from them, everyone in the room laughed—even the youngest princess.
Hers was an absurd story; she could not deny it. “Well, yes, I suppose so,” she teased herself for everyone’s amusement, “but only because the royal notary was not present to draw up the requisite papers for signing.”
A wave of good cheer rolled through the great hall. The sun in the sky heard it and smiled. Unlike the gloomy forest, the castle regularly released bursts of joyous sounds like this. There was no need to squint or strain to catch a glimpse. The sun knew right away who was at the center of this shared delight.
Chapter 5
The princess has already informed the royal court of many details concerning her encounter with the frog. There is still one relevant detail remaining to be told.
“I was just so annoyed with myself,” the princess confessed. “The ball was gone forever. I felt shame for being so careless, but I don’t know why. I had only been doing what I always do.”
“I’ll admit,” she said with a sigh, “I started to blubber like a little baby boy. That is when this frog showed up. I suppose he heard my distress. He said he would retrieve the ball on one condition…”
The princess paused. She was now keenly aware that everyone in the great hall was looking directly at her. They were all ready to continue laughing, and so they were all waiting to hear her next words. She, however, knew there was nothing more to laugh at. As absurd as her story was, it did not have a punchline.
“…on the condition that we…”
She halted again because she just wanted the story of this frog to be over. Her silence only enticed her audience more. Even the soldiers were listening intently now; a treaty with any one, even a frog, could be pertinent to matters of national security.
“I said that we would be friends,” she blurted. No sooner had her full confession left her lips than there came more knocks. Storytelling was over. The frog was real, and he was right outside the door. The king wrinkled his forehead in consternation. Her older sisters looked at each other aghast at their own not knowing what to do next. All at once, each servant attending the table thought of an urgent chore to see to in the kitchen. Of course, the royal guards are trained to stand still as statues, but at this moment they seemed to be standing even more still than stone.
In vain, the princess tried to make it all a joke again. “I never thought that he would leave the water. I certainly never imagined that he would come to the castle. Just imagine a tiny little froggy fist knocking at our royal entryway!”
There was no more laughter. Absolutely everyone was at a loss for words, except for the frog who had begun to sing a cheery tune.
Youngest king's daughter,
Open to me!
By the well water,
What was it you promised me?
Youngest king's daughter
Now open … open to me!
The maiden’s face turned bright red. She looked down at her plate trimmed with gold and did not say a word.
The king cleared his throat and spoke so that everyone could hear, "My child, I think the world of you. I trust you completely. And I want anyone to whom you have made a promise to trust you just as much as I do. Go ahead and let him in."
Across all of time, countless frogs have lived on our planet, and they have hopped into and out of nearly every imaginable hollow space. A mathematician once calculated that, in just a few more months, the number of frog leaps known on earth could surpass the number of stars in heaven. Yet, this day was the first and only time a frog hopped through the front gate of the king’s castle. Even so, not a single soldier or servant so much as batted an eye.
It was evening. The sun seemed vexed as it dropped out of sight. The darkness, which is always chasing after the light, could hear the sun grumbling to itself as it disappeared, “Frogs have all the luck!”
Chapter 6
The frog sang a happy tune. The princess was mortified. The beloved king encouraged his daughter to keep her promises to others as if she had made the promises to him.
The princess made her way back to the dining hall in silence. Without looking behind, she knew the frog was following because she could hear him hopping across the stone floor.
She came in and stood behind her chair. The frog was the first to speak, “Lift me up so that I can sit with you as we eat!”
She stood motionless. The frog, who never seemed to be in a hurry, waited expectantly to be picked up. The king made the creature’s presence official, “My child, please, seat your guest.”
The princess let out a sigh of exasperation for all to hear as she plopped herself down in her chair. She scooped up the frog in one hand and swung the animal through the air as a way of introducing him to the other dinner guests. His hind legs sprawled outwards. His fat chin supported a big smile. She then put him next to her hip out of everyone’s sight.
There the frog sat for about two seconds. “Oh no, this won’t do at all!” he protested to no one in particular. Then he leapt from the chair onto the table and spoke directly to the princess, “Please, push your plate closer, so that we may eat together.”
In horror, the king’s daughter turned to look at her father. He raised his eyebrows and nodded his head in agreement with the frog’s request.
Looking in the opposite direction, she used the backs of her fingers to push her plate toward the frog. Everyone in the room could see her disdain for this creature—except the frog. He did not notice her indelicate manner. He was still singing the same happy tune, though the lyric was morphing as he went.
The youngest king's daughter
Feasts with me!
I met her royal father
And he nodded his head to me!
The youngest king's daughter
How can … how can this be?
The frog ate heartily. The king’s daughter did not. Every bite stuck in her throat, while the frog relished each morsel. After a short while, he stopped asking the princess to serve him his next helping. Instead, he just hopped across the table to whatever platter interested him most. After each taste, he always hopped straight back to the princess to comment on how fabulous it all was.
“I have had enough now,” said the frog. “and I am so tired. You know what a long trip it is from the well to the castle? It is even longer when you hop! Please show me to your room. Make a place ready next to your pillow. We can chat for a while before we go to sleep.”
This was the last straw. The king’s daughter pleaded through angry tears. “Father, this has gone far enough!”
Kings, like competent soldiers, are trained for every possible scenario. Fathers, conversely, are vulnerable because they can never know what emotion might strike at their hearts next. Though he was nowhere near tears, the father did respond to the princess’ plea with a plea of his own. “My child, if you promised to repay a kindness with a kindness, I believe you are strong enough to follow it through. If this gracious beast helped you yesterday, then do not despise the poor creature today.”
Chapter 7
After feasting at the king’s table, the frog grew tired. He wanted to recline on a pillow in the princess’ bed. She thought the whole thing was outrageous.
The princess held the frog at arm’s length pinched between her thumb and forefinger. As she stomped up the staircase, the frog could hear her grumbling about something in a low voice. He was curious and listened closely, but he could not make out what she was saying.
Upon entering her room, the princess immediately dropped the frog in the corner. Breathing heavily through her nose she paced back and forth. After a while, she calmed herself enough to sit on her bed. She looked out the window into the night sky.
The frog stared intently at the princess. The day before, he had seen the golden ball reflected in her eyes. He wondered if now he might be able to see the reflection of a star. He didn’t see any flashes, but he liked trying to see just as much as he liked it when he actually saw.
He spoke to anyone who would listen, “Life is so amazing! A frog fairy must have leaned over my cradle and blessed me when I was tadpole.”
“Ugh!” exploded the princess, “That doesn’t even make sense!” She was pulling her own hair in disbelief. “A cradle for tadpoles—it’s ludicrous! How do you come up with this nonsense?”
The frog quickly conceded her point. “Yes, I suppose you’re right about the cradle. All the same, I’m very, very fortunate. There is no doubt about that.”
“Oh sure, your life is simply amazing, but look what has become of mine!”
“What do mean?” he replied. “You have the golden ball. It is yours to keep forever. If you were to lose it again, I would be right by your side and ready to fetch it for you, always, one more time.”
Her grumbling recommenced. This time she did not bother to lower her voice, “What good is a golden ball if a slimy frog gets stuck to it for all eternity?” She threw herself back in her bed in an act of exasperation much like how she had seated herself at the royal table in the great hall.
“Oh, are you sleepy? Me too! I’m sure I must be just as tired as you are. Pick me up and lay me on a pillow next to your head. I will watch you fall asleep…or perhaps you will watch me fall asleep. Either way, we can talk about it in the morning.”
The princess fell into a blind rage. She jumped out of bed and raced across the room. She snatched up the frog and squeezed him in her fist. She whispered at first, “Will you just be quiet,” but it turned into a shriek as she threw him against the wall. “You. Awful. FROG!!”
Something peculiar happened as the frog flew across the room: time slowed down. In this expansive moment, the princess saw more than what met her eyes. There was the frog, but she saw more. There were his hind legs spinning through the air, but she saw still more. There were his little arms clutched to his chest. It was almost as if he were praying as he spiraled toward the wall, but she saw even more than that.
The princess saw a prince.
If you ask him, the prince will swear to you that at that very moment he saw stars reflected in the princess’ eyes. However heartfelt his testimony may be, it must be paired with the fact that anyone would be seeing stars after slamming their head against a stone wall.
Chapter 8
There was once a frog in this story, but no one can see him anymore.
“Oh my, just look at him blink those big black watery—” the king’s oldest daughter paused and thought, “the rest of him seems human enough, but I’d say there’s still something froggy about the eyes, wouldn’t you?”
“Is the poor boy finally waking up?” asked the king.
“Princess…princess…” murmured the groggy prince. “I don’t remember seeing you fall asleep. So, it must have been you who watched me go to sleep—is that what happened?”
The princess could neither nod her head ’yes’ nor shake her head ’no,’ let alone speak. She just frowned.
An attendant to the king rushed up and held out a glass of wine. “Here you are, sir. You must drink to relieve the pain.”
“That can wait,” said the royal physician, “let me finish here.” He was bandaging the man’s head. “This swelling is good; it is when such wounds don’t swell that we get worried.”
“But how?” gasped the middle daughter.
“Sorcery,” stated a guard matter-of-factly.
“Well obviously… but was it a magic wand, or did he accidently drink poison on a moonless night, or…?”
“You’re missing the point,” chided the oldest sister, “It’s not a question of how, it is a matter of who. It was our Little Sissy who brought him back. Only she could rescue him.”
The princess could feel everyone in the room turning to look at her. She desperately wanted someone to say something about anything else.
“Yes, indeed,” agreed the king. “This is a matter of who, and I am not the least bit surprised that my youngest would become a healer for someone’s misery. I have seen her strength and kindness developing for years. This event will be memorable, but it comes as no surprise. What I do find unsettling, however, is the other ‘who’ in this story. Who turned him into a frog to begin with? Some malevolent spellcaster is running amuck.”
The king got more worked up the more he thought about it. “Unacceptable!” he exploded. “Scribe, take down a royal decree: a maladjusted fairy has begun inflicting misery on the innocent—we must teach this preternatural imp his proper place in the order of things!”
“No,” called out the prince, “your majesty, forgive me for saying it, but you’ve got it all wrong.” He reached up to touch his sore head. “I was never miserable.”
“Hah! So, you enjoyed being a frog, did you?”
“In my life, I’ve only known one joy after another—each more joyous than the last.”
“Well, I did notice the glee with which you were hopping across my dinner table. Not exactly statesmanlike behavior, but it did look fun. I don’t doubt there were some perks to your condition, but did you honestly enjoy it when you had to start eating flies?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” replied the prince as he struggled to his feet. He wobbled on his legs as a toddler might as he learns to walk. “It was difficult at first…but once I lost my tail and my legs fully developed, I relished the chance to leave the water behind and hunt on land. You see, except for clusters of mosquito eggs, which are few and far between, tadpoles only get to munch on algae. It’s quite boring. Fly-catching, on the other hand, is enthralling sport! It requires expert timing, agility, and subtle misdirection. Why, his majesty the king might enjoy such a pastime himself, provided of course that…”
The frog prince continued to prattle on. No one listened to what he was saying, because none of them could yet believe what they were hearing.
Chapter 9
Once upon a time there was a very peculiar prince who knew quite a bit about being a frog and remarkably little about being human.
Almost everyone in the room stood dumbfounded, pondering the princess.
The king, who was just another father after all, smiled dotingly and thought to himself, “Some would say this is unimaginable. I suppose it is, but I still can’t say that I’m totally surprised.”
Without looking, the king motioned to the scribe to stop his earlier dictation. If he had bothered to look, then he would have seen that the scribe’s pen was no longer anywhere near the parchment. It was scratching the chin of a very puzzled head. “How do we warn the fairy folk of our impending wrath when there is nothing to be upset at them about?” thought the scribe.
Lost in thought, the oldest daughter covered her open mouth. “So, my sister didn’t go and make a pact with a pollywog—she went and made a prince out of pollywog!” This was the first time she had ever thought of her sister as merely her sister—not her younger sister. In fact, she never called her ‘Little Sissy’ again.
The middle daughter placed a hand on her hip. “But how did she do it? She doesn’t know how to do anything but toss that silly ball in the air!” This is exactly what she thought, but she did not blurt it out loud. The space between thinking and blurting would continue to expand over the years as she grew older, wiser, and more compassionate.
The soldier exhaled and relaxed his shoulders disappointedly. His actual thoughts are highly classified and cannot be printed here. Judging from his body language, he was thinking something along the lines of, “It’s too bad, really. I was looking forward to tracking down a rogue fairy.”
The doctor gulped. This experience had led him to question the very foundations of his profession. “Here I thought I was treating a wound, when it was more like I was tending to a newborn!” From this day forward, there was a profound change in how he practiced medicine. He still used the same techniques as always, but he devoted additional time to observation. He asked more questions, and this made him a better advocate for healing.
The prince had been talking this whole time. Since the others were all lost in their private thoughts, none of them heard a word he was saying. They heard him speaking, but they were not listening to what he said—until he spoke aloud the exact thing each of them were already thinking:
“No, there were no meddling fairies in this tale, your majesty. The only one in this kingdom who has ever cast a spell on me is your youngest daughter.”
The princess became intently aware that everyone in the room had turned to look at her. She was right, of course, but she hadn’t needed to look up or out to see anyone staring. It more like she looked inward and saw herself stared-at.
She blushed and giggled a special giggle. It was not one of those simple laughs that you or I might make when we get embarrassed. This was a much more complicated sound. It escapes from the involuntary muscles of our hearts when we are both utterly embarrassed and entirely confident that our embarrassment will be handled tenderly.
As quiet as that delicate laughter was, the sun heard it straight away and spat, “Now what have I missed?!?!” One big bright eye peaked over the eastern horizon to see what it could see. “What marvel has she brought us today?”