The Voracious Frog

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Title:     The Voracious Frog
Author: Anonymous [More Titles by Anonymous]

There were a rat and a frog. And the rat said to the frog, "Go and get me some sticks, while I go and get some flour and milk." So the frog went out far into the jungle and brought home plenty of sticks, and the rat went out and brought home flour and milk for their dinner. Then she cooked the dinner, and when it was cooked she said to the frog, "Now, you sit here while I go to bathe, and take care of the food so that no one may come and eat it up." Then the rat went to take her bath, and as soon as she had gone the frog made haste and ate up the dinner quickly, and went away.

When the rat came back she found no dinner, and she could not find the frog. So she went out to look for him, calling to him as loudly as she could, and she saw him in the distance, and overtook him. "Why have you eaten my dinner? Why did you go away?" said the rat. Said the frog, "Oh, dear! it was not I that ate your dinner, but a huge dog that came; and I was only a tiny, tiny thing, and he was a great big dog, and so he frightened me, and I ran away." "Very well," said the rat; "go and fetch me more sticks while I go for flour and milk." So the frog went out far into the jungle and brought back plenty of sticks. And the rat went to fetch flour and milk. Then she lit the fire and cooked the dinner, and told the frog to take care of the dinner while she went to bathe. As soon as she had gone, the frog ate up all the dinner, and went away and hid himself. When the rat came back she saw no frog, no dinner. She went away into the jungle and called to him, and the frog answered from behind a tree, "Here I am, here I am." The rat went to him and said, "Why did you eat my dinner?" "I didn't," said the frog. "It was a great big dog ate the dinner, and he wanted to eat me too, and so I ran away." The rat said, "Very well. Go and fetch me some more sticks, and I will go for flour and milk." Then she cooked the dinner again and went to bathe. The frog ate up all the dinner, and went away and hid himself. When the rat returned she saw no dinner, no frog. So she went far into the jungle, found the frog, and told him that it was he that had eaten the dinner. And the frog said, "No," and the rat said, "Yes." And the frog said, "If you say that again, I will eat you up." "All right," says the rat, "eat me up." So he ate her up and sat behind a tree, and the baker came past. The frog called out, "Baker, come here! come here! Give me some bread." The baker looked about everywhere, could not see anybody, could not think who was calling him. At last he saw the frog sitting behind a tree. "Give me some bread," says the frog. The man said, "No, I won't give you any bread. I am a great big man, and you are only a little frog, and you have no money." "Yes, I have money. I will give you some pice, and you will give me some bread." But the man said, "No, I won't." "Well," said the frog, "if you won't give me bread, I will eat you up first, and then I will eat up your bread." So he ate up the man, and then ate up his bread. Presently a man with oranges and lemons passed by. The frog called to him, "Come here! come here!" The man was very much afraid. He didn't know who had called him. Then he saw the frog, and the frog said, "Give me some lemons." The man wouldn't, and said, "No." "Very well," says the frog, "if you won't, I'll eat you up." So he ate up the man with his lemons and oranges. Presently a horse and his groom went by. The frog says, "Please give me a ride, and I will give you some money." "No," said the horse, "I won't let you ride on me. You are like a monkey,--very little--I won't let you ride on my back." The frog said, "If you won't, I'll eat you up." Then the frog ate him up, and his groom too. Then a barber passed by. "Come and shave me," says the frog. "Good," says the barber, "I'll come and shave you." So he shaved him, and he thought the frog looked very fat, and so as he was shaving him he suddenly made a cut in his stomach. Out jumped the rat with her flour and milk--the baker with his bread--the lemon-seller with his oranges and lemons--the horse and his groom. And the barber ran away home. And the frog died.

 

NOTES.

FAIRY TALE TRANSLATED BY MAIVE STOKES.

WITH NOTES BY MARY STOKES

THE RAT AND THE FROG.

Compare the Bohemian "Long-desired child," Naake's Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 226. This child is carved out of a tree-root by a woodman, who brings him home to his wife. They delight in having a child at last. The child eats all the food in the house; his father and mother; a girl with a wheelbarrow full of clover; a peasant, his hay-laden cart, and his cart-horses; a man and his pigs; a shepherd, his flock and dog; lastly, cabbages belonging to an old woman who cuts him in two with her mattock just as he tries to eat her. Out of him jump unhurt every thing and every one he has swallowed. In a story from the south of Siberia (Gubernatis' Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 140) the hero vanquishes a demon, who tells him that in his stomach he will find a silver casket. He cuts the monster open and out of him come "innumerable animals, men, treasures, and other objects. Some of the men say, 'What noble youth has delivered us from the black night?'" In two of the caskets the hero finds the eyes of an old woman who has befriended him, and money, "and from the last casket came forth more men, animals, and valuables of every kind." In a Russian story quoted by Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. pp. 406, 407) the wolf eats the kids all but one. The mother goat persuades him to jump over a fire. The fire splits his belly open, out tumble all the little kids, lively as ever. There is a very similar story with fox, goat, and kid for actors in Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. III. p. 93; and Grimm has one also, "Der Wolf und die sieben jungen Geislein," in his Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. I. p. 29. In the notes to this story, vol. III. p. 15, Grimm says, "In Pomerania this is told of a child who when his mother had gone out was swallowed by the child-spectre, resembling the varlet Ruprecht. But the stones which he swallows with the child make the spectre so heavy that he falls to the earth, and the child unhurt springs out of him." See, too, the demons at p. 99 of these stories, who swallow the Princess Champákálí's suitors.

* * * * *

Tylor in his Primitive Culture, vol. I. p. 341, classes Little Red Riding Hood among these Day and Night myths. It is, he says, "mutilated in the English Nursery version, but known more perfectly by old wives in Germany, who can tell that the lovely little maid in her shining red satin cloak was swallowed with her grandmother by the wolf, but they both came out safe and sound when the hunter cut open the sleeping beast." He also quotes among these myths (ib. p. 338) a story of the Ojibwas in which the hero is swallowed by a great fish and cut out again by his sister; and another belonging to the Basutos in which all mankind save the hero and his mother were devoured by a monster. The hero "attacked the creature and was swallowed whole, but cutting his way out he set free all the inhabitants of the world." At the same page is the story of the Zulu Princess Untombinde who was carried off by a dreadful beast. "The king gathered his army and attacked it, but it swallowed up men, and dogs, and cattle, all but one warrior; he slew the monster, and there came out cattle, and horses, and men, and last of all the princess herself." Mr. Tylor quotes, too (ib. p. 336), in connexion with this class of myths, the story of the death of the New Zealand sun-hero, Maui, which he tells more fully than does Sir George Grey in his Polynesian Mythology; and he goes on at pp. 338, 339, 340, to connect these myths with those of Perseus and Andromeda; Heracles and Hesione; the story of Jonah and his fish; the Greenland angakok swallowed by bear and walrus and thrown up again; and the legend of Hades.

Besides the angakok mentioned by Mr. Tylor, Dr. Rink, in his Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, has two other stories of escapes from the stomach of a dead animal when it is cut open. In the first, at p. 260, the boy is devoured by a gull; his sister kills the bird, takes her brother's bones from its pouch and carries them home: on the way the boy comes to life again. The other tale, p. 438, tells how Nakasungnak jumped out of the hole his friends had made in the dead "ice-covered" bear's side; but his hair as well as the skin of his face had come off, and he shivered from cold and ague. And in Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 177, is a story of a snake who steals "the luminaries of the night. A hero cuts off his head, and out of the slain monster issue the Bright Moon and the Morning Star."

 

GLOSSARY.

Bél, a fruit; Ægle marmelos.

Bulbul, a kind of nightingale.

Chaprásí, a messenger wearing a badge (chaprás).

Cooly (Tamil kúli), a labourer in the fields; also a porter.

Dál, a kind of pulse; Phaseolus aureus, according to Wilson; Paspalum frumentaceum, according to Forbes.

Dom (the d is lingual), a low-caste Hindú.

Fakír, a Muhammadan religious mendicant.

Ghee (ghí), butter boiled and then set to cool.

Kází, a Muhammadan Judge.

Kotwál, the chief police officer in a town.

Líchí, a fruit; Scytalia litchi, Roxb.

Mahárájá (properly Maháráj), literally great king.

Mahárání, literally great queen.

Mainá, a kind of starling.

Maund (man), a measure of weight, about 87 lb.

Mohur (muhar), a gold coin worth 16 rupees.

Nautch (nátya), a union of song, dance, and instrumental music.

Pálkí, a palanquin.

Pice (paisa), a small copper coin.

Pilau, a dish made of either chicken or mutton, and rice.

Rájá, a king.

Rakshas, a kind of demon that eats men and beasts.

Rání, a queen.

Rohú, a kind of big fish.

Rupee (rúpíya), a silver coin, now worth about twenty pence.

Ryot (ràíyat), a cultivator.

Sarai, a walled enclosure containing small houses for the use of travellers.

Sárí, a long piece of stuff which Hindú women wind round the body as a petticoat, passing one end over the head.

Sepoy (sipáhí), a soldier.

Wazír, prime minister.

Yogí, a Hindú religious mendicant.

[The end]
Anonymous's short story: Voracious Frog

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