The Tale of Two Frogs

Long ago in Japan there were two frogs who lived very far apart. One made his home in a ditch near Osaka, a town by the sea. The other lived in a clear little stream that ran through the city of Kyoto. They lived so far from each other that neither had ever heard of the other.

Yet, oddly enough, both frogs had the very same idea at the very same time: they wanted to see a little of the world. The Kyoto frog longed to visit Osaka. The Osaka frog longed to visit Kyoto, where the great Emperor lived in his palace.

So one fine spring morning they both set off along the road between Kyoto and Osaka, one from each end. The trip was harder than they had expected, because they knew very little about traveling. Halfway between the two towns stood a mountain, and they had to climb it. It took a long time and a great many hops, but at last each frog reached the top. And what a surprise! There, in front of him, sat another frog.

For a moment they stared at each other without a word. Then they began to talk, and each explained why he was so far from home. How lovely to find that they both wanted the same thing, to learn more about their own country! Since neither was in any hurry, they stretched out in a cool, damp spot and agreed to have a good long rest before they went on.

“What a shame we’re so small,” said the Osaka frog. “If we were bigger, we could see both towns from up here and know whether it’s worth going on.”

“Oh, that’s easy to fix,” said the Kyoto frog. “We just stand up on our back legs and hold on to each other. Then each of us can look at the town he’s going to.”

The Osaka frog liked this idea so much that he jumped straight up and put his front feet on his new friend’s shoulders, and the Kyoto frog stood up too. There they stood, stretching as tall as they could and holding on tight so they would not topple over. The Kyoto frog pointed his nose toward Osaka, and the Osaka frog pointed his nose toward Kyoto.

But their plan had a flaw. In the tale’s imaginary standing posture, the frogs’ eyes looked backwards: although their noses pointed towards the towns they wanted to visit, each was looking at the town he had come from.

“Goodness me!” cried the Osaka frog. “Kyoto looks just like Osaka. It isn’t worth such a long trip. I’m going home!”

“If I had known Osaka was only a copy of Kyoto, I would never have come all this way,” said the Kyoto frog. As he spoke, he let go of his friend’s shoulders, and they both tumbled down onto the grass.

Then they said a polite goodbye and hopped off home. And for the rest of their lives they both believed that Osaka and Kyoto were as alike as two peas, even though those two towns look as different as two towns can be.

About this story

“The Two Frogs” is a Japanese tale in Andrew Lang’s The Violet Fairy Book (London: Longmans, Green, 1901), where Lang’s credit line at the end of the tale names Japanische Märchen as his source. It is a Japanese story, not one of Aesop’s fables.

The joke gives the frogs an imaginary backwards view when they stand upright. That device makes their mistake easy to picture, but it should not be used as a factual explanation of frog vision.

Read the original: The Violet Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 3–5 — a short, silly journey with a funny mistake at the top of the mountain.

A closer reading

Both frogs agree, but they have not independently checked the destination. Each is looking at his own familiar town while assuming it is the unfamiliar one. Their agreement therefore reinforces the same mistake rather than correcting it.

They began with curiosity and willingness to travel, then let one apparently convincing view end the inquiry. The missing step is small: checking which direction they are actually seeing. The story’s humour comes from the reader knowing the mistake while the travellers remain confident for the rest of their lives.

Try this with the story

Put two paper towns at opposite ends of a table and use two frog drawings at the middle. Add one arrow for each nose and another for the imagined view. Turn the view arrows towards the intended destinations and ask what the frogs would need to check before deciding to go home.

Talk about it

• Why did the frogs think the two towns looked the same?
• What could the frogs have done to find out the truth?
• Have you ever made up your mind about something too quickly?

Related stories

• The Tongue-Cut Sparrow — another Japanese tale about animals
• The Farmer and the Badger — a Japanese animal tale with a trickster
• The Dog and His Reflection — a short fable about an animal fooled by what it sees