Once upon a time there was a princess who was so beautiful that even the Sun fell in love every time he saw her. But the Princess was lonely and wondered when her Prince charming would come. Although the Princess was beautiful she was also a spoiled brat and quite full of herself. Of course, you would be too if you were so beautiful that the Sun thought you were sexy, which you are not so I don't know what your excuse might be. But in any event the Princess was beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside. No one could stand her and even those princely suitors who managed to pretend they liked her for the sake of climbing the social ladder secretly loathed her. For her part the princess dismissed all of these suitors as unworthy of her beauty and she wished upon her wishing well that her Prince would come. In addition to being beautiful the Princess was blessed with the ability to make her own wishes come true. But since she was a shallow and vain person she did not think to cure world hunger or cancer, and instead kept wishing for a man to make passionate love to her. So she was quite surprised when her wish seemed to go wrong and instead of a prince, an ugly talking toad presented himself to her and began courting the beautiful princess. This is disgusting thought the princess. And what if we have children. Will they be grotesque human-toads condemned to wallow in my pond for the rest of their lives? She shuddered but was also rather intrigued at the mechanics of how the two of them would breed, until she vaguely remembered her tutor explaining that frogs fertilized their eggs without physical contact. That doesn't sound fun at all said the princess. Illustration from The Frog Prince drawn by Walter Crane. |
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I particularly like Crane's ability to convey emotion in these drawings. We get an insight into the princess's sad loneliness. |