Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The Fable of Snow White and the Frog Prince

There was something about the fresh pine smell of the enchanted forest that made Snow White want to sing, and something about the way the sunlight streamed through the branches that made her want to dance.

It was a beautiful day, filled with that satisfying confidence that anything good could happen, and nothing bad could ever infringe on her contentment. So she sang. And she danced.

The dancing was quite short-lived, for the forest had very thick underbrush that caught at her feet, her ankles, and her skirts. Moments after her cheerful jig started, it ended with a whump!, and she landed face down in the prickly bushes.

Still, it was one of those days when anything good could happen, and Snow White had no intention of letting a couple small scratches and a bloody nose dampen her spirits. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her blouse and she laughed. Nothing would spoil this lovely day.

As she sat in a heap in the prickly bushes, laughing at her small misfortune, she heard a strange sound emanating from the bushes to her right. It sounded like snoring.

Curiously, she pushed the twigs and leaves aside, scoring four more scratches across her hands and arms, and searched out the source of the snoring sound.

It was a tiny little frog, fast asleep on a lump of sod, with his legs stretched out and his mouth wide open. But it was not just any frog. No, this little fellow in the thorn bushes was wearing a tiny, kingly crown upon his warty head.

Snow White laughed. Not a laugh of disdain or scorn - it was a laugh of pure, unadulterated joy, for she understood now why the fates, in their deviousness, had caused her to fall on this particular bramble.

He was the Frog Prince. She knew this because she had grown up in Fairy Tale land, and had learned all the important tales in school. The wicked witch (Snow White's own stepmother, in fact) had put an evil curse on the young prince, transforming him into his current amphibian form. The curse could be broken only by true love's kiss. When the prince received that kiss, he would revert to his human form, and marry the one who had bestowed the kiss of love upon his warty brow.

With a cheerful smile, Snow White bent closer to the ugly creature, her lips puckered for true love's perfect kiss...

And now, if you will forgive the interruption, we shall pause just a moment in the telling of our sweet little fable to present the moral of the story. Children, it matters not how wonderful the weather is outside your schoolhouse windows, it matters not how deathly dull the lessons might be, and it matters not how tedious is the work: pay attention in school, for your future may very well depend upon it.

Snow White, you see, had been distracted the day they taught the difference between a frog and a toad. The tale of the Toad Prince, alas, is quite different.

Nevertheless, I'm pleased to report that the two of them did live hoppily ever after.

More writing by this author

Blogs on This Site