The princess, the frog and a kiss that never existed

There are countless versions of this folklore tale. In it, invariably, the princess kisses the toad, turning him into an attractive prince.

Despite the popularity of the story, that kiss never existed.

All those versions come from a story by the Brothers Grimm entitled: The Frog Prince or Iron Henry (Der Froschkönig oder der eiserne Heinrich).

In the original story, a capricious princess philosophises about love near a pond, where a toad croaks incessantly at the moon. Tired of hearing her answers, the princess throws a kind of jewel, almost always a golden sphere, which hits the calm waters of the pond.

Magically the toad turns into a handsome prince.

Although in all modern versions of the story the princess must kiss the frog for him to become a prince, the Brothers Grimm tale dispenses with this device.

In previous versions of the Grimm Brothers’ tale, the tragedy becomes even more incredible. The kiss is absent, naturally, but so is that jewel or golden sphere thrown against the pond. There, the capricious princess, in a fit of disgust, throws the toad against a wall, returning it to its natural form.

In the transition between these violent, not at all romantic, transformations, a version appeared in which the toad had to spend the night on the princess’s pillow before recovering its human form.

According to the Aarne-Thompson classification of fairy tales, The Princess and the Frog falls into category 440.

The princess and the frog, with different variants and nuances, appears in different folklore stories. Between them:

The meaning of the kiss in the story of the princess and the frog is quite clear, and does not require further explanation. It is not, as is usually thought, a metaphor about finding true love behind appearances, but rather an analogy about the experience, of “kissing frogs before meeting the prince.”

Let’s review some psychological aspects of the story of the princess and the frog.

One of the main aspects of the story is the princess’s anger and anxiety.

These emotions seem to intensify in the presence of the toad-prince. In almost all versions, the idea of ​​touching the toad deeply disgusts the princess. This symbolizes the arrival of maturity; arrival that comes accompanied with a feeling of love-hate for the object of desire.

Now, the love-desire for the prince is not “natural.” In fact, it can only become “natural” when the toad becomes a prince.

Marie-Louise von Franz -author of: The Way of the Dream, Interpretation of Fairy Tales (Psychologische Märcheninterpretation), The Grail Legend, The Shadow and Evil in the fairy tale (Der Schatten und das Böse im Märchen), Lilith: the first Eve: historical and psychological aspects of the dark feminine (Lilith, die erste Eva: eine Studie über dunkle Aspekte des Weiblichen) and The feminine in the fairy tale ( Femenine in Fairy Tales) -, maintains that the myth of the transformation into a toad comes from very ancient times, and that in fact toads were rarely seen as diabolical creatures.

In popular mythology, the toad embodies the masculine principle of nature, almost always, in opposition to the feminine principle, represented as a frog.

In the original version, the princess’s father forces her to marry the toad. He knows the true nature of the batrachian, but does not inform his daughter. Here the father functions as a force that tests the princess’s whims, small acts of rebellion against the certainty that adulthood is approaching and with it the loss of childhood.

The golden sphere that the princess throws into the pond represents perfection, that is, the idyllic state of purity that until then was her exclusive heritage. In other words, what the princess throws at the toad is her purity, her virginity.

In reward for that initiatory sacrifice, the toad becomes what he already secretly was: a handsome prince who never needed a kiss, but something much more intimate to regain his form.

More mythology. I The dark side of psychology.

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