Stranica 56 [56]
: THE FROG PRINCE :
N the old times, when it was still of some
use to wish for the thing one wanted,
there lived a King whose daughters
were all handsome, but the youngest
was so beautiful that the sun himself,
who has seen so much, wondered each
time he shone over her because of her
beauty. Near the royal castle there
was a great dark wood, and in the wood
under an old linden-tree was a well ; and when the day was hot,
the King’s daughter used to go forth into the wood and sit by
the brink of the cool well, and if the time seemed long, she
would take out a golden ball, and throw it up and catch it
again, and this was her favourite pastime.
Now it happened one day that the golden ball, instead of
falling back into the maiden’s little hand which had sent it
aloft, dropped to the ground near the edge of the well and
rolled in. ‘The king’s daughter followed it with her eyes as it
sank, but the well was deep, so deep that the bottom could
not be seen. ‘Then she began to weep, and she wept and
wept as if she could never be comforted. And in the midst
of her weeping she heard a voice saying to her,
“What ails thee, king’s daughter? thy tears would melt a
heart of stone.”
And when she looked to see where the voice came from,
there was nothing but a frog stretching his thick ugly head
out of the water.