This twisted tale paints the travails of an unconventional princess and her feverish forays into amphibian fornication with a transformational frog of slippery skins. Our protagonist, with fiery red hair and yellow eyes, conspires to upend a traditional story defined in the ATU* fairy tale classification system as Type 440, featuring a spoiled princess and an amorous anuran. You know the one — it tells of the conjugation of a lily-skinned lassie and her beastly bridegroom with a lumpy green hide, who turns into quite the prize, a prince no less (at least perhaps if she imagines really hard and screws up tight her eyes.) It’s a telling tale that provides the blueprint for female subjugation and an unsavoury marriage of arrangement — if we read not too far between the lines.
But back to our story and the rosy, red head who seeks to subvert the template. She sets out on her quest to find a frog that’s best, at everything a prince is not. During her capers through the ages, her predicaments cause her to reassess her strategies and reach ever higher for both social and personal equality. Her opposite, when put to the test, unimpressed by stagnant ponds, hops around, it could be said, if speaking metaphorically. How he moves and changes, she discovers, is mildly alarming… as follows:
Her man-frog mutates through a series of personas, as she peels off his skinsuit in translucent layers like an onion. It begins with a split, a thin pink smile divides the soft, clammy belly, and something moves inside. Curious to touch, she pries and lets the new burst through, all slimy limbs, webbed hands, and bulging eyes. Like this, her salientian suitor jumps through time, morphing with each interval. Each era, she tries another frog for size. On her journey of discovery, she learns undeniably: Every frog has his problems, sure, but some are full of promise, while some are just a wet green bag full of lies…..
*The Aarne-Thompson-Uther index, which categorizes tales based on similar motifs and structures.
