The Frog Princess

The story opens in a community along the Yangtze-kiang where people are said to worship the Frog King. He has a temple there, and frogs by the thousand live round about, some of them enormous. Anyone who angers the god is likely to see strange things happen at home. Frogs hop over the tables and beds, and in the worst cases they even climb the smooth walls of a room without falling off. The signs vary, but all of them mean that some misfortune threatens the household. Then the terrified family slaughters a cow and offers it as a sacrifice, the god is soothed, and nothing more happens.

In that region there once lived a young man named Sia Kung-Schong, handsome and clever. When he was six or seven, a serving maid dressed in green came to his home. She said she was a messenger from the Frog King, who wished his daughter to marry young Sia. Old Sia, did not like the idea and declined, saying his son was too young to marry. Even so, he did not dare look for another wife for the boy.

A few years went by, the boy grew up, and a marriage was arranged between him and a certain Mistress Giang. But the Frog King sent word to the Giang family: “Young Sia is my son-in-law. How dare you lay claim to what does not belong to you!” Father Giang took fright and withdrew his promise.

Old Sia was deeply troubled. He prepared a sacrifice, went to the Frog King’s temple, and prayed, explaining that he felt unworthy to become related to a god. When he finished, swarms of huge maggots appeared in the sacrificial meat and wine and crawled about. He poured them out, begged forgiveness, and went home full of dark forebodings. He did not know what else to do, so he let matters take their course.

One day young Sia went out into the street, and a messenger came up to him saying that the Frog King urgently wished to see him. There was no way out; he had to go. The messenger led him through a red gate into magnificent, lofty rooms. In the great hall sat an old man who looked about eighty. Sia threw himself on the ground before him. The old man told him to rise and gave him a seat at the table. Soon a crowd of girls and women pressed in to look at him. The old man turned to them and said, “Go to the bride’s room and tell her the bridegroom has come!”

A couple of maids ran off, and shortly afterward an old woman came out of the inner rooms leading a girl of about sixteen by the hand, more beautiful than anyone could describe. The old man pointed to her. “This is my tenth little daughter,” he said. “I thought you two would make a good match, but your father looked down on us because we are of a different kind. Yet marriage matters for a whole lifetime. Parents can decide it only in part; in the end it rests mostly with oneself.”

Sia gazed at the girl, and affection for her grew in his heart, but he sat silent. “I knew the young gentleman would agree,” the old man went on. “Go home ahead of us, and we will bring your bride to you.”

Sia promised and hurried to tell his father. The old man was so flustered he did not know what to do. He thought up an excuse and wanted to send Sia back to decline the bride politely, but Sia refused. While they were still arguing, the bride’s carriage was already at the door, surrounded by a crowd of servants in green. The young lady came in and bowed courteously to her parents-in-law. Both were delighted with her, and the wedding was held that very evening.

The young couple lived together in peace and harmony. After the marriage their divine in-laws often came to visit. When they arrived dressed in red, it meant some good fortune was coming; when they came in white, it meant the family would make a profit. And so in time the household grew rich.

But now that the family was related to the gods, the rooms, courtyards, and every corner were always crowded with frogs, and no one dared hurt them. Only Sia Kung-Schong, being young, showed them no respect. When he was in a good mood he left them alone, but when he was out of sorts he showed no mercy and stamped on them on purpose.

His wife objected to her husband’s cruelty. Sia refused to stop harming the frogs, so she scolded him for it, and he grew angry. “Do you think,” he said, “that because your parents can bring bad luck on people, a real man would be afraid of a frog?”

His wife was always careful never to say the word “frog,” so his words made her angry. “Since I came into your house,” she said, “your fields have given bigger harvests and you have sold at the highest prices. That counts for something. But now that young and old are comfortably settled, you want to behave like the young owl that pecks out its own mother’s eyes as soon as it can fly!”

That made Sia angrier still. “I have disliked these gifts for a long time,” he said. “I think they are unclean, and I could never leave such property to my sons and grandsons. We had better part at once!” So he ordered his wife out of the house, and she was gone before his parents knew anything about it. They scolded him and told him to go and bring her back immediately, but he was furious and would not give in.

That same night he and his mother fell ill. They felt weak and could not eat. His worried father went to the temple to beg forgiveness and prayed so earnestly that in three days his wife and son were well again. The Frog Princess came back too, and the two lived together as happily and contentedly as before.

Another disagreement concerned household work. The princess spent her time on her jewelry and appearance, while Sia’s mother continued sewing and mending her son’s clothes. One day the mother lost her temper. “My son has a wife,” she said, “and still I have to do all the work! In other homes the daughter-in-law waits on her mother-in-law, but in ours the mother-in-law waits on the daughter-in-law.”

The princess happened to overhear. She came in, very upset, and said, “Have I ever failed to pay my respects to you morning and evening, as is right and proper? My only fault is that I won’t wear myself out with all this drudgery just to save a little money!” The mother said not a word but wept bitterly and silently at the insult.

When her son came in and saw that his mother had been crying, he insisted on knowing why and found out what had happened. He reproached his wife angrily. She argued back and would not admit she was wrong. At last Sia said, “Better no wife at all than one who gives her mother-in-law no joy. What can the old frog do to me if I anger him, except bring misfortune on me and take my life?” And he drove his wife out of the house a second time.

The princess left. The next day fire broke out in the house and spread to several other buildings. Tables, beds, everything burned. Enraged by the fire, Sia went to the temple to complain. “Bringing up a daughter who cannot please her parents-in-law shows there is no discipline in your house,” he said, “and now you even encourage her in her faults. They say the gods are perfectly just. Are there gods who teach men to fear their wives? Besides, the whole quarrel is my doing alone; my parents had nothing to do with it. If I deserved to be punished with the axe and the rope, very well—you could have punished me yourself. But you did not. So now I will burn down your house to satisfy my own sense of justice!”

With that he began piling brushwood in front of the temple and struck sparks to set it on fire. The neighbors came running and pleaded with him, so he swallowed his anger and went home. When his parents heard what he had done, they turned pale with fear.

But that night the god appeared to the people of a neighboring village and ordered them to rebuild his son-in-law’s house. At daybreak they hauled in timber, and workmen came in crowds to build for Sia. Whatever he said, he could not stop them. Hundreds of workers labored all day, and within a few days every room had been rebuilt, with all the utensils, curtains, and furniture just as before. When the work was done, the princess came back as well. She climbed the stairs to the main hall and admitted her fault with many tender, loving words, then turned to Sia Kung-Schong and gave him a sidelong smile. Instead of resentment, joy filled the whole house. From then on the princess was especially good-tempered, and two whole years went by without an angry word.

The princess, however, had a great horror of snakes. Once, as a joke, young Sia put a small snake in a parcel, gave it to her, and told her to open it. She turned pale and reproached him. Then Sia Kung-Schong took his own joke too seriously, and angry words flew. At last the princess said, “This time I won’t wait for you to throw me out. Now we are finished with each other for good!” And she walked out of the door.

Father Sia was terrified. He beat his son with his own staff and begged the god to be merciful and forgive. Luckily nothing bad followed. All was quiet; not a sound was heard.

More than a year passed this way. Sia Kung-Schong longed for the princess and took himself sternly to task. He would slip secretly into the god’s temple and mourn the loss of the princess, but no voice answered him. Soon afterward he even heard that the god had promised his daughter to another man. Then he lost all hope and thought of finding another wife. But however hard he looked, he could find no one to equal the princess, and that only made him long for her more. He went to the house of the Yuan family, to one of whose members she was said to be promised, and saw that the walls had been freshly painted and the courtyard swept, and everything was ready for the bridal carriage. Sia was overcome with regret and misery. He stopped eating and fell ill. His parents were so stunned with worry that they could not think of any way to help.

Suddenly, as he lay there half conscious, he felt someone stroking him and heard a voice say, “And how is our fine husband, who insisted on throwing out his wife?” He opened his eyes, and it was the princess.

Overjoyed, he sprang up. “How is it that you have come to me?” he asked.

“To tell the truth,” said the princess, “the way you always mistreat people, I ought to have followed my father’s advice and taken another husband. In fact, the Yuan family’s wedding gifts have been lying in my home for a long time. But I thought and thought and could not bring myself to do it. The wedding was to be this evening, and my father thought it would be shameful to have the gifts carried back, so I took them myself and set them in front of the Yuans’ door. As I left, my father ran out after me. ‘You mad girl,’ he said, ‘so you won’t listen to me! If Sia mistreats you in future, I wash my hands of it. Even if they kill you, you shall not come home to me.’”

Moved by her faithfulness, Sia wept. The servants ran joyfully to tell his parents the good news, and they did not wait for the young couple to come to them but hurried to their son’s rooms themselves, took the princess by the hand, and wept. By now young Sia had grown steadier and was no longer so mischievous, and he and his wife loved each other more truly with every day.

One day the princess said to him, “In the past, when you always treated me so badly, I was afraid we would not grow old together, so I never asked heaven for a child. But now everything has changed, and I will pray to the gods for a son.” Sure enough, before long Sia’s parents-in-law appeared at the house dressed in red, and soon after, heaven sent the happy couple not one son but two.

After that their ties with the Frog King were not broken again. Whenever someone angered the god, he would first try to get young Sia to speak for him and send his wife and daughter to beg the Frog Princess for help. If the princess laughed, all would be well.

The Sia family has many descendants, whom people call “the little frog men.” Those who live near them do not dare call them that, but people farther away do.

About this tale

“The Frog Princess” is one of the literary fairy tales near the end of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, which reached English readers in 1921 through Frederick H. Martens’s translation for the Stokes company of New York. It begins by describing the worship of the Frog King along the middle course of the Yangtze-kiang.

Wilhelm’s note describes Wa Dsi, translated here as ‘little frog men,’ as a regional insult directed at southern Chinese people. The final line supplies a fantastic origin for that insult; it is not an explanation of any population’s ancestry or a label to adopt.

Read the original: The Frog Princess in Wilhelm’s book, free from Project Gutenberg

For older readers: coercive marriage arrangements, animal cruelty, repeated expulsions, arson, physical punishment and a father threatening to deny his daughter refuge even if her husband kills her. The final reconciliation should not be read as a duty to return to an unsafe relationship.

Reading the story closely

The Frog King says marriage ultimately rests with the couple, yet he blocks another match and treats Sia as already promised to his daughter. Later he refuses her future refuge when she chooses to return. His statements about choice conflict with the pressure he applies. Sia likewise claims to resist intimidation while deliberately frightening his wife with a snake.

Make a timeline of the three separations, recording who initiates each, what consequences follow and what choice the princess has. The last departure brings no magical punishment; Sia has to live with her absence. At the end the narrator says his conduct improves, but gives little detail of repair. Discuss what actions beyond regret and reunion would demonstrate lasting change, without assuming the princess’s return is what every partner should choose.

Talk about it

• Why does Sia’s wife get so upset when he hurts the frogs?
• Compare the first two expulsions with the princess’s final decision to leave. What happens each time, and who chooses whether to return?
• How has Sia changed by the end of the story, and what shows it?

Related stories

• The Disowned Princess — another daughter of a water king who marries a mortal
• Rose of Evening — another literary tale of love between a human and the spirit world
• Black Arts — another young husband with a powerful wife and an alarming family