Previously in this series: The little mermaid. Original text by the Brothers Grimm here.
In an old time in an old country there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful and all unlucky. To be beautiful in this country was to be noticed by men; for this reason the girls were unlucky. It is lucky for a woman not to be noticed. In this country, women prayed to secret gods to let them be forgotten. They prayed with their faces to the floor.
It was the king’s youngest daughter who was the most unlucky. She was so beautiful that the sun itself noticed and fell in love with her, and never let its rays stray from her face for even a moment. She slept with her face jammed into a pillow and the coverlets over her head, but the sun could not let her sleep unnoticed, and every day it found her, and every day it woke her while everyone else was still asleep. Beauty is never private.
“Beauty belongs to everyone,” the king told his daughters. “Beauty is a public good.”
“What does that mean?” the youngest princess asked.
“It means you belong to everyone,” the king said. (The king was not beautiful, but he was covered in beautiful objects, which amounted to more or less the same thing.)
“Then don’t I also belong — at least partly — to myself?” said the princess. The sun burned hot on her forehead.
“Don’t be clever,” the king said. “Go and play outside, where people can see you.” A girl is least safe at the age when men begin to notice her while she is trying to play. A man who wants to notice something cannot be talked out of it. He notices, then he remarks, and then he acts. Always in that order. He cannot be talked out of it. A girl who wants to play has no chance against a man who wants to notice her. His game will beat hers, every time.
Near the king’s castle there was a very old forest full of tall and black-trunked trees. In this forest, beneath an old linden tree, there was a well. In the heat of the day, when the sun’s attentions became unbearable, the princess would run out to the forest, where the trees grew so close almost no light reached the ground. She would sit at the edge of the well, where she belonged to no one. She would take with her a golden ball and throw it straight up in the air, then catch it when it came down. When she was in the forest, she could throw and catch and push away the sun as easily as she liked. It was her favorite plaything.
But on this day, it happened that the princess threw the golden ball so high into the trees that it came down to the left of her and vanished with a thick splash into the well. She leaned over the edge and tried to find it, but the well was so deep she could not see the slightest sign of it. She sank down on the stone and could not be consoled.
Someone noticed her crying (someone always noticed her). They called out to her (someone always called out to her after they noticed her): “What is the matter with you, princess? Yours is a face too beautiful for tears.”
She looked around to find the voice and saw a frog that had stuck its flat, wet head out of the water. It looked like a calf’s heart that had escaped from the butcher and grown legs and a mouth.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I am crying because my golden ball has fallen into the well.”
“Be still and stop crying,” answered the frog. “I can help you, but what will you give me if I bring back your plaything?”
“But I did not ask you to help me,” the princess said. “Why should I promise you anything?”
“You are sitting on my well,” said the frog, resting its long, thumbless hands on hers, “and you are beautiful, and you are crying, and I saw you. That is the same as asking.”
And the princess had no answer for that. “Whatever you want, then,” she said. “My jewels, my royal robes, even the golden crown that I am wearing.” That was all that she could think to offer, but it was not all that she could give.
The frog said, “I do not want your robes, your jewels nor your golden crown, but if you will accept me as a companion, and let me sit next to you at your table and eat from your golden plate and drink from your cup and sleep in your bed, if you will promise this to me, then I’ll dive down and bring your golden ball back to you.”
The princess remembered her father’s words: Beauty belongs to everyone.
“Ye-e-e-es,” she said. “I will promise all of this to you if you will bring my ball back to me.” And she hoped that perhaps the frog was joking, and would not hold her to such an outrageous promise, for what sort of reward was that for merely fetching a ball?
But men are never joking when they ask for promises, and men always remember when they are owed something.
As soon as the frog heard her say yes he stopped listening to what she was saying and dove back into the water, a dark clot moving swiftly underneath the surface until he disappeared from sight entirely.
A few minutes later he paddled up to the edge of the well with the golden ball in his mouth and spit it onto the grass. His purple tongue hung out of his lipless mouth, but the princess was too happy to notice how he looked at her. She was so filled with joy when she saw her beloved plaything once more that she picked it up and immediately ran for home.
“Wait,” called the frog. “Take me along. I cannot run as fast as you; that is not my fault but yours.” But she could not hear him, so intent was she on returning home, where she soon forgot about the frog and what he did for her in the forest.
But women were not allowed to forget anything in this country. The frog sank back into the water in the well, where he waited like a heartbeat.
The next day the princess was sitting at the table with the king and all the people of the court, and was eating from her golden plate when something with a lipless mouth and thumbless hands that knew her name came creeping up the marble steps.
It hauled itself jerkily up to the top, where it knocked on the door and called out, “Princess, youngest, open the door for me!”
She ran to see who was outside. She opened the door, and the frog was sitting there, panting with its purple tongue, eyes rolling wildly in both directions. Frightened, she slammed the door shut and returned to the table. The king saw that her distress and asked, “My child, why are you afraid? What was at the door?”
“It was a disgusting frog,” she told him.
“What does the frog want from you?”
“Oh, father dear, yesterday when I was sitting near the well in the forest and playing, my golden ball fell into the water. And because I was crying so much, the frog brought it back, and because he insisted, I promised him that he could be my companion, but I didn’t think that he could leave the water in the well. But now he is just outside the door and wants to come in.”
Just then there came a second knock at the door.
The king said, “What you have promised, you must keep.”
“But I didn’t really promise,” the princess said. “He made the promise for me.”
The princess was very unlucky. The king’s face darkened, and she shrank back in her seat, too late to go unnoticed. And all her father said was: “Go and let the frog in.”
She went and opened the door, and the frog hopped in, then followed her up to her chair. He sat there and called out, “Lift me up next to you.”
She hesitated, until finally the king commanded her to do it. When the frog was seated next to her he said, “Now push your golden plate closer, so we can eat together.” His breath smelled of mud and worms and dead leaves, and she shuddered but she obeyed him. The frog did not mind that she shuddered, only that she did it.
Everyone could see that she did not want to, but no one noticed. The frog enjoyed his meal, but for her every bite stuck in her throat. Finally he said, “I have eaten all I want and am tired. Now carry me to your room and make your bed so that we can go to sleep.”
The princess began to cry. “You are dirty and wet and cold to the touch,” she said. “How can I let you sleep in my beautiful, clean bed?”
“Put me in between your knees,” the frog told her. “I will be warm there, and the only thing that will get dirty is you, and you can wash.”
The king became angry and said, “You should not rebuff someone who has helped you in your time of need. You owe him.”
And the princess would have given her ball back to the well, if she could. “I would rather have a punishment than a favor like this one again,” she said bitterly.
She picked the frog up with two fingers and held him as far away from him as she could. Her skin puckered wherever he touched her. She carried him upstairs and set him in a corner, where he stared at her. As she was lying in bed, he came creeping up to her and said, “I am tired, and I want to sleep as well as you do. Pick me up or I’ll tell your father.”
With that she became furiously angry and threw him against the wall with all her might. “Now you will have your peace, you disgusting frog!”
And when he fell down, he croaked louder and louder until her father the king filled the doorway. And her father the king picked the frog up himself and placed him in bed with her. And the frog crawled underneath her knees and she hated the touch of him. The princess wished all her skin was dead and gone.
By and by he fell asleep, and she lay awake and staring all night, and for many nights afterwards.
She was a very unlucky princess.
Tags: books, children’s stories made horrific, fairy tales, the frog prince
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I’m so upset.
oh my God, Mallory.
(The worst part about these for me is not that they’ve been made horrific- they were horrific all along; I was just too lulled into quiet to notice.)
Beauty is a public good.
…
It means you belong to everyone.
Havin’ a think right now…
The end of this actually made me shiver with nausea.
The frog sank back into the water in the hell, where he waited like a heartbeat.
Noooooooooooo. 🙁
THIS FROG IS EVEN MORE AWFUL THAN I REMEMBERED
WHY WON’T YOU JUST DIE, FROG D: D: D:
Darkclotdarkclotdarkclot. Shuddering forever.
“A man who wants to notice something cannot be talked out of it. He notices, then he remarks, and then he acts. Always in that order. He cannot be talked out of it. A girl who wants to play has no chance against a man who wants to notice her. His game will beat hers, every time.”
This made me feel even more creeped out by what happened while I was walking my dog last night, which is that after making small talk about my dog, an older man who was sitting on his stoop said, “It got chilly today. This morning you were wearing shorts, but now you put on pants. I saw you this morning, but I didn’t want to bother you.”
D:
D: D: D:
Oh my God.
I just want to wrap you up in a Magical Golden Cloak of Invisibility with Deployable Forcefield and Lazers.
Thank you! I mean really I think that’s what we all need.
Teach your dog to growl on command. A subtle command.
Nah just teach the dog to growl at men.
Holy crap.
O_O holy crap what a CREEP. you are a rusalka; perhaps if you take to the sea………oh wait that last story in this series we had definitely rules that out. D=
Well, fuck.
This is the most horrifyingly accurate fairytale of Growing Up While Female.
Yes, it’s brilliant in what it highlights. (I had an argument with my mother a couple of days ago about the problematic aspects of Cinderella — I was the one arguing that it has aspects that are inherently problematic — and I’m still crabby about the whole thing. I am going to save this retelling to show to her.)
These are only going to get worse, aren’t they
“Don’t be clever,” the king said.
No, women are to hide their intelligence
“men always remember when they are owed something”
And even when they are owed nothing. They still “remember” being owed.
“women were not allowed to forget anything in this country”
We are to remember that the men are owed.
Mallory, this is horrifying. Mostly because it’s not a story, but real life for women. OK, I’m stating the obvious. Because I am blown away. My wits are addled. Jesus, Mallory!
“Everyone could see that she did not want to, but no one noticed.”
*shudders right out of existence* 🙁
THIS IS THE WORST ONE YET. I’m going to go read “The Little Mermaid” again.
God, at least that ended kind of misandrist-ly…
I like the alternate Grimm’s ending as much as Mallory’s: “She awoke in the morning, thinking that the frog would hop away once again, but now a beautiful young prince was standing before her. He told her that he had been an enchanted frog and that she had broken the spell by promising to be his sweetheart. Then they both went to the king who gave them his blessing, and they were married. The two other sisters were angry with themselves that they had not taken the frog for their sweetheart.”
You like that ending. I do not. It’s OK for us to disagree.
She was pressured, made a promise under duress, and the ensuing marriage is presented as her reward. A man is not a prize.
I took “as much as Mallory’s” to mean “not at all” which is comforting
Remember, this means that a man got to get into her bed through trickery, watch her sleep, and god knows what else. The fact that he’s beautiful doesn’t change his tricking his way into her bed.
The shuddering caused by this story should be harnessed to power the world. Just tie some magnets to my shoulders and surround me with copper wire.
“Beauty belongs to everyone,” the king told his daughters. “Beauty is a public good.”
“What does that mean?” the youngest princess asked.
“It means you belong to everyone,” the king said. (The king was not beautiful, but he was covered in beautiful objects, which amounted to more or less the same thing.)
“Then don’t I also belong — at least partly — to myself?” said the princess. The sun burned hot on her forehead.
“Don’t be clever,” the king said.
Ohhhh, if only this unlucky princess knew about Ayn Rand 🙁
jESUS CHRIST, MALLORY.
He did not mind that she shuddered, only that she did it.
Oh god, Mallory. Goddess Mallory, in fact.
I’m gonna go reread, “If Hayley Atwell Were Your Girlfriend” so I don’t have to stop breathing.
Yesssss.
This certainly lives up the series’ name.
I’d recommend Grimm’s “All-Kinds-of-Fur” story to anyone looking a horrific story that hasn’t had an extra dose of horrible added. Its a fun little story about a King wanting to marry his daughter. Tale as old as time.
I was read this over and over as a child – for some reason my mother saw no need to even lightly censor any fairy tales (still not sure if this was a blessing or a curse). I remember trying to explain it to my friends and being met with looks of horror and on rereading it I can’t help but agree with them!
I love the way those things are presented in the fairytale translations just as being, you know, kind of standard. Like, it says the councilors were horrified, and the princess was horrified, but there wasn’t really any measure of… horrification? Just, a king who thought it would be the best and easiest solution to marry his daughter. Shit happens.
(I just went and read it on your recommendation)
It is such a horrific story.
Robin McKinley’s novel “Deerskin” is an interpretation off “All-kinds-of-Fur” — she does a really good job exploring the levels of fucked-up-ness of the original story
I was going to recommend ‘Deerskin’ too. It’s so horrific, and intensely unsettling, but so scarily real, despite the magical fantasy aspects.
Now I feel terrible about taking my two daughters to a children’s theater production of The Frog Prince recently. There were definitely aspects of it that were troubling. I guess they sort of saved it by adapting it to have sort of an environmental message? The frog teaches all the humans, not just the Princess, to stop throwing trash into his pond. They all clean it up together.
However, there was still the hideous “you must keep your promise” aspect… crap. My kids really enjoyed the show, too. Damn you Mallory for being the most brilliant and creative literary critic ever.
oh my gosh I mean don’t worry about it, it’s just a story
…OR IS IT
I don’t know what hurts more, reading this story myself and understanding it, or knowing that the day is coming when my nieces and daughter will understand it too and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Ew ew ew ew ew heebie jeebies for daaaaays. This is brilliant and I love/hate it.
“Put me in between your knees,” the frog told her. “I will be warm there, and the only thing that will get dirty is you, and you can wash.”
So many cringes. Nope nope nope.
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.
A dude made a creepy comment at my six year old daughter on the bus. She was confused and uncomfortable. I cried in secret for days, thinking “It’s started. I thought she’d get longer.”
I am so sorry. She deserved longer.
…More like she deserved forever without that.
When I was a kid, this was presented as a story about “keeping your promises means you will be rewarded.”
Now I can see it’s clearly a story about “nice guys who think helping a woman out means they’ll get a relationship.”
That’s how I always teach it to my students. I point out that even if the princess *did* promise, consent can be withdrawn at any time!
Tomorrow I get to find out whether this lesson was absorbed or not…
I don’t think I remembered quite how horrifying that story was even in its original form. I also don’t think I realized how much truth there was in it.
JESUS CHRIST, MALLORY
Also, I was always confused about why the princess didn’t just have a new golden ball made. I feel sure that the treasury would be able to handle it.
What, marrying a man in a time before birth control isn’t horrifying enough?
There’s a great (and by great, I mean super squirmy and creepy) version of this story by Patricia McKillip in the Harrowing the Dragon collection that is narrated by the toad (not a frog in her version).
When I was little, I thought the princess was horrible in this story because she felt that promises weren’t worth keeping if they were given to lesser beings like frogs, and I couldn’t see why the prince would want to marry her. Now I see that the whole story is icky no matter which way you look at it.
Yeah, I seem to remember the frog being cast in a particularly sympathetic light in many of the versions I read.
Which shows us how DEEP and INGRAINED the patriarchy is, and has always been.
Yes! Me too, because that was the way it was written and I had zero litcrit capacity when I was little. I thought the princess was selfish and fickle… HOW VERY ODD that society as a whole tedns to view women that way!
I thought the Beauty and the Beast one was going to be the most terrifying for me, but this has kept creeping its way back into my mind over and over in the hours since I read it, and it’s visceral and terrifying.
Beautifully retold in Robin McKinley’s book Deerskin, which is one of my favorite books of all time. In fact I think I might go read it again right now.
Mallory, you chill me to the bone. Does anyone have a word for when an idea is not only brought into the light for you but you realised you already knew it? I’m having an ‘you exist, that’s the same as asking’ moment right now.
Filing this away to pull out any time someone tries to defend the concept of the Friendzone
GUYS I found the antidote to this story if you need to sleep again ever – just re-imagine the frog as Kermit.
You’re welcome.
….or did I just ruin the Muppets for everyone too. Goddammit.
I would happily cuddle in bed with Kermit. Or maybe not, because Miss Piggy would kill me.
Holy crap, Mallory. I’M SORRY WE ENJOYED YOUR VERSION OF THE LITTLE MERMAID. I KNOW WE WERE MEANT TO BE HORRIFIED.
This is a terrible, haunting story with altogether too many truths in it. I feel it would be beneficial for many girls to read it as they grow up, but I don’t know exactly when they ought.
Many quotable lines, but this one struck me especially:
As soon as the frog heard her say yes he stopped listening to what she was saying
And also, of course:
The princess wished all her skin was dead and gone.
This is too true.
Currently reading Maria Tatar’s annotated fairy tales. She makes the point that men get off easy and receive forgiveness, even if they abandon their kids or sell them to monsters or want to commit incest, whatever. (Mothers and sisters, no dice. You get petrified, red-hot iron shoes, eyes pecked out, dismembered, even if the crime is just generally being unpleasant.)
As horrifying as this tale is, it’s actually refreshing to read a fairy tale where the bullshit circumstances are named and recognized.
I don’t really know what to type here? I read this last night and then just didn’t sleep because it brought back memories of just.. well. Lots of stuff buried? I don’t know. I feel like I should leave a comment whenever a piece of writing really touches me, and this did.
—
““Don’t be clever,” the king said. “Go and play outside, where people can see you.” A girl is least safe at the age when men begin to notice her while she is trying to play. A man who wants to notice something cannot be talked out of it. He notices, then he remarks, and then he acts. Always in that order. He cannot be talked out of it. A girl who wants to play has no chance against a man who wants to notice her. His game will beat hers, every time.”
—
I’ve looked “adult enough” since I was eight years old. I have been told and taught that I would need to field men’s desires and wants since I was too young to even understand what that meant. Reading this made me want to vomit because it just reminded me of when I learned that it wasn’t lies– all the times my mother said, “Watch out” and “Be wary” and “Watch everything they do”–at the time, I thought that she couldn’t possibly be serious all the time. What could people possibly want from me? I was a kid, I thought that exaggeration was just something that mothers DID.
Around the time I started being “noticed” as a girl was the time I started feeling like prey. And every time I tried to break from that, people would make an effort to remind me that I was still prey, that I was still vulnerable, that I was still in danger, and, most of all, that it was all up to me to decide what this meant because it was going to happen whether I liked it or not.
Because of all of this shit happening so early as a child, I didn’t know how to differentiate “interest” from “wanting to take advantage.” And I still don’t know if I do. What happens when people who are used to being treated like prey want to find intimacy with another person? How do you even navigate that and know when you’re taking something for yourself versus learning to grin and bear encroachment on your space with brash words and a false sense of “empowerment” and “liberation.” Being treated like prey and being taught that “love is being wanted” keeps the cycle going. Is this just a thing that so many woman share?
The most upsetting part of this story, for me, is that despite it being a take on a fairy tale it feels too real. And I feel like I know the person this girl grew up to be in her early 20s, and I wish I didn’t.
Oh, I think I had both the Tanith Lee and Ellen Katlow anthologies!
Those were fantastic books.
“You are sitting on my well,” said the frog, resting its long, thumbless hands on hers, “and you are beautiful, and you are crying, and I saw you. That is the same as asking.”
chills
And… I was wrong, not an uncommon occurrence; the story I was thinking of IS in Red as Blood…. AND it does have a rakshasa. Okay then. And I can't remember where the other story is that's muddled in with this in my memory, some sort of creepy variant on Iron Hans. Sidenote: should not read Tanith Lee when writing my own stuff, as her voice is terrifically contagious for me.
When I remember this fairy tale, I think of how we’re supposed to think the the moral of the story is that the Princess should do what the frog wants because she’s spoiled and needs to be taken down a peg, but like seriously who expects a girl not to be spoiled when her dad gives her a ball of gold to play with; don’t blame the kid. bleh.
I just really wanted there to be a happy ending and for that frog to be punished by karma.
i really want that frog to die. in a fire.
i really want that frog to die. in a fire.
ugh please kill the frog