Jan 27 2023 - The Frog Princess

 

The Frog Princess is a fairy tale that has multiple versions with various origins. It is classified as type 402, the animal bride, in the Aarne–Thompson index.   Another tale of this type is the Norwegian Doll i' the Grass. Russian variants include the Frog Princess or Tsarevna Frog (Царевна Лягушка, Tsarevna Lyagushka) and also Vasilisa the Wise. The Frog Princess is a Slavic folktale focusing on the importance of recognizing someone’s inner beauty, regardless of their outward appearance, as well as the possibility of redemption after failure. The tale has many variants and appears in Czech, Hungarian, Italian, and Russian folk works as well as many others. The Frog Princess, named Vasilisa the Wise, is a beautiful, intelligent, friendly, skilled young woman, who was forced to spend three years in a frog's skin for disobeying Koschei.  The Frog Princess sheds her skin, and the prince then burns it, to her dismay.   She sat down on a bench, sorely grieved, and said to Prince Ivan, "Ah, Prince Ivan, what have you done? Had you but waited three more days I would have been yours forever.   Trekking far and wide to find her, the Prince meets an old man.  "Take this ball of yarn and follow it without fear wherever it rolls."   It rolls on and on with many adventures. And of course, the Prince is reunited with his beautiful Vasilisa the Wise and they live in peace and happiness to a ripe old age. aka HAPPILY EVERY AFTER.

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The Frog Princess

It is time now for the Frog Princess.  I found out yesterday about the fairy tale classification system.  This is type 402 - animal bride - in the ATU Index. "The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU Index) is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU Index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: Originally composed in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910); the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1928, 1961); and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU Index, along with Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1932) (with which it is used in tandem) is an essential tool for folklorists." ~Wikipedia "The king (or an old peasant woman, in Lang's version) wants his three sons to marry. To accomplish this, he creates a test to help them find brides. The king tells each prince to shoot an arrow. According to the King's rules, each prince will find his bride where the arrow lands. The youngest son's arrow is picked up by a frog. The king assigns his three prospective daughters-in-law various tasks, such as spinning cloth and baking bread. In every task, the frog far outperforms the two other lazy brides-to-be. In some versions, the frog uses magic to accomplish the tasks, and though the other brides attempt to emulate the frog, they cannot perform the magic. Still, the young prince is ashamed of his frog bride until she is magically transformed into a human princess." Can you imagine being considered the heroine because of the ability to perform household tasks for a King.  What does he need a daughter-in-law servant for?   There's the core of fairy tale lessons:  innocence, beauty and virtue are valued as the attribute a woman should possess (and passivity is good too). Ambition is evil and possessed by witches and stepmothers. I read this article by Dr. Silima Nanda   "The Portrayal of Women in the Fary Tales" and had to admit it was discouraging to find out about social and cultural values through the centuries.  Rather than dwell on the past, the index of tales is fascinating  - I found the index HERE.  It starts with animal tales and progresses through to people tales. For example, ATU 425 - Beauty and the beast ATU 440 - The Frog King ATU 510A - Cinderella Our pictures for today are our Spring stories - what's blooming in the garden yesterday.

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