„Bevor du deinen Prinzen findest, mußt du eine Menge Frösche küssen“
“You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs before You Meet Your Handsome Prince”

From Fairy-Tale Motif to Modern Proverb

Author(s): Wolfgang Mieder
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, German Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: fairy tale; Grimm; kiss; proverb; variant
Summary/Abstract: In the German fairy tale Der Froschkönig the princess throws the ugly frog in disgust against the wall, upon which the animal changes into a handsome prince. In a variant the frog sleeps for three nights on the bed of the princess and then is changed into a prince. There are dialect variants in which the frog is transformed into a prince by a liberating kiss. With the exception of very recent children’s books, there is no kiss scene in the printed versions of the tale. The kiss has entered the folktale by way of the modern proverb “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your handsome prince.”

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