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Once upon a time, a princess kissed a frog. I'm not exactly sure why she did this; it is, after all, a rather disgusting thing to do. Perhaps her parents did not pay enough attention to her (which is very likely, being that kings and queens don't make the best parents, as they are usually too busy being kings and queens). Perhaps she had been overindulged as a child, or maybe the distinction between fiction and reality had become blurred for her from reading too many stories. Perhaps she was simply enamored of amphibians. At any rate, I think that she expected the frog to turn into a prince.

Of course it didn't. It was just a frog, and a very surprised and frightened frog at that. Princess held the struggling frog in her hands (her name, by the way, was Princess, her parents not being overly imaginative), looking for the slightest traces of a transformation. Seeing none, she sat down on the boggy earth near the pond with an exclamatory "humpf!" This was not a wise thing to do, as she sat on wet, muddy ground in a white dress, though some might say that this was a subconscious act of rebellion against her parents and the stereotypical mold of a princess they had cast her in. Some might say that; I am not so sure. It's hard to tell in these matters.

Anyhow, there she sat, looking over the frog and wondering why it had not yet turned into a prince. It was supposed to, after all. All the books said so, and she had been very particular about the particulars. She had scouted the pond for days, searching for a suitably melancholy - looking frog. (This was a key point, and she congratulated herself on her reasoning, for any prince who had been turned into a frog would certainly look melancholy.) While the frog did appear distressed, I don't believe it was capable of looking melancholy. But Princess in her wisdom had chosen this frog, had made sure that she was alone with it, had kissed it right on the lips (or mouth, rather; frogs don't have lips), and of course she was a full-blooded princess. Everything was right...except that it was still a frog.

"Maybe I just need to give it more time," she thought to herself. "The magic might not work right away." She was about to let the frog go and check again tomorrow when something occurred to her. What if it turned into a prince during the night, and another girl came along before her in the morning? The prince would marry her instead, when Princess had gone to all the trouble of kissing the frog in the first place. No, it would be better to take the frog back home with her, to keep it under observation. Which is exactly what she did.

Princess soon arrived at the castle, a pretty enough place as far as castles go, though not as charming as some might imagine. One should bear in mind that castles lacked indoor plumbing and weren't always the most comfortable places to live. Princess determined, on the way home, to keep the whole frog affair a secret from her parents. Accordingly, she waltzed in the front entrance and through the main audience chamber holding the frog. Her mother instantly spotted her, and the queen's eyes zeroed in on both the frog and the muddy stain adorning the posterior region of her daughter's dress.

"Oh, good lord child!" she called. "What have you gotten into now?"

Princess, shocked at being discovered so quickly, could not think up a suitable lie. "I just went to the pond, mother, to kiss a frog but he didn't turn into a prince so I brought him home to keep an eye on him." Princess consoled herself on this slip by thinking that honesty was the best policy, anyway.

"Are you brain-dead?" the queen screamed. "Oh, that a child of mine could have turned out so stupid. Get to your room!"

Princess fled from the chamber, and the queen made a note in her memo book to have the princess's governess flogged at the earliest opportunity. One is likely to forget such things if one does not write them down, after all.

The king, who had been engaged in consulting with his minister, looked up momentarily at the outburst. The minister, by the way, had been engaged in lying to the king - but that is another matter.

"Is everything all right, dear?" asked the king.

"It's that idiot daughter of ours," the queen replied. "You really need to do something about her. And remind me to have the governess flogged tomorrow." This was just in case she misplaced her memo book between now and then.

"Of course, dear, of course." Then to the minister, "Make sure to have the governess flogged tomorrow, William."

"As you wish, your majesty." And William made a note of it.

Meanwhile, Princess had found a suitable home for the frog in her rather spacious jewelry case. She dropped the frog in among the emeralds, pearls, gold, and diamonds, and closed the lid.

"Now you stay in there," she commanded, "and in the morning, I expect to see a prince." And so the poor frog was shut in the dark box for the night.

In the morning, Princess looked in vain for a prince in her chambers, but readily found a frog in her jewelry case. It seemed to be wearing a necklace, as though it aspired to be a prince, if only to be freed from its dark prison. But Princess, in her distress, took little notice of the frog's pitiable state. Instead, she took out her fairy-tale books, to see where she might have gone wrong. It was all there, plain as day: prince angers witch, witch casts spell, prince turns into frog, beautiful princess comes along... and there Princess stopped, for a horrible consideration had dawned upon her. She was not beautiful! That must be it - everything else was correct, but she was not beautiful enough to counteract the witch's spell and save the poor prince.

Princess rushed to her looking-glass and peered closely at her reflection. She had blemishes; her nose was too large; her eyebrows were too thick; her teeth weren't white enough; her hair was thin and stringy. On top of all these other ailments, she was too fat. Convinced of her grotesqueness, she sat upon her bed and wept. No prince was ever saved by an ugly princess, in any book she had read. (It should be noted, objectively, that while Princess was not stunningly beautiful, she was by no means ugly.) Thinking these thoughts, Princess worked herself into such a state of depression and despair that she refused to open the door to her servants or her governess, and when she was informed that her breakfast was prepared, she shouted that she would never eat again because she was so fat.

The governess immediately went to the queen with this information. The queen, on seeing the governess, had her memory jogged sufficiently that she recalled there was something she was going to do, or have done... if only she hadn't misplaced her memo-book.

"James, wasn't there something I was going to do about the governess?"

The king glanced over at his wife, and realized with consternation that he had to remind her of something today, and that if he didn't come out with it quick, she would be in a foul temper. He looked imploringly at his minister. "William, read to her majesty the command I gave you yesterday regarding Princess's governess."

"Of course, my Lord, I have it right here," responded William, glancing at the governess, whom he found quite attractive.

"Your majesty, following the request of her majesty the Queen, ordered that the governess should have the day off, for the purpose of caring for her sick father."

The queen knitted her brows. "No, I don't think that was it."

The king, being shrewd in such matters, decided to stick with his minister's pronouncement, for he could not furnish the correct order from his own memory, and could not admit that to the queen, for fear of incurring her wrath.

"Yes, my dear, that was the very order; I remember it perfectly."

As the queen still looked unconvinced, the minister spoke again. "If her majesty the Queen wishes, I could review the notes of our previous day's business with her later, at her majesty's convenience." Here he bowed low to the queen, and gave her such a look that the queen flushed, accepted his offer immediately, and gave the governess her unexpected day off. The governess, on leaving, shot a grateful look to the minister, who reflected that he would have a busy night.

Unfortunately, this matter with the governess drove all consideration about the princess from everyone's minds. Well, not quite everyone's: the minister remembered well enough, but did not care to trouble himself about it, while Princess's servants were happy not to have to wait on her that day. They held their peace. And so Princess remained locked in her room for the day, feeling wretched and ugly, and not taking a bite of food or sip of drink. An equally unfortunate circumstance was that Princess was so overwhelmed by melancholy and self-pity that she neglected the poor frog, and took no note of its feeble scratching and rustling in its bejeweled prison.

The next morning, things went no better. Princess was in a black despair, exacerbated by lack of food and drink, and of the mind that nobody cared for her (one could easily see how she would make that assumption). She screamed at the servants when they knocked timidly in the morning, shouting that they should let her die in peace; that she was horribly ugly and could not bear to be looked upon; that nobody liked her anyhow. A few of the servants were in agreement with this last point, having had experience with past ill humors, but one of the wiser ones decided it would be in her best interest to inform the king, lest blame should fall on the servants if the princess were seriously ill. The king listened intently to the message, but was not at all sure how to act, as the queen was not there to provide her usual uncompromising opinion of things (she was sleeping in). The king looked to his minister.

"Your majesty might talk to the princess, if your schedule permits," the minister offered.

"Yes, I suppose you're right," replied the king, dreading the "talk," for he had no idea what to say to his daughter. He then had a stroke of something approaching common sense. "Shouldn't her governess handle things like this?"

"Unfortunately, your majesty, her majesty the Queen has given the princess's governess another day off. Her father is really quite ill." The minister had convinced the queen of this after giving her majesty a very full and thorough report in her private chambers the night before, and had procured for the governess a second day of repose, for which the governess went to great lengths to thank him.

"I see," said the king, wishing, but not daring, to controvert the orders of the queen and send for the governess. "I will go speak to Princess, then." This with an air of forlorn resignation.

The king, on arriving at his daughter's door, heard such sounds of lamentation issuing from within that he truly became alarmed. "Princess!" he called through the door. "Whatever is the matter?"

"Stay back, father!" came the despondent, wailing voice. "Don't come in, for I have the Kiss of Death!"

This response perplexed the king greatly. "What in the world do you mean, daughter?"

"Everything that I kiss dies!" And thereupon the princess burst into a great deal of wailing and crying. She had arrived at this generalization from the one example of the poor frog, the only thing she had ever kissed, which had indeed expired in her jewelry case from lack of food and water.

The king had his doubts about this Kiss of Death business, but not so much that he would venture into Princess's room right then. She might, after all, have something catching.

"Don't worry, Dearest," he called during a lull in the crying. "I'm sending for the Royal Physician."

The physician, a nervous man by nature, came with great haste when summoned. The queen had by this time awoke, and she induced Princess to admit the physician into her room by her usual subtle diplomacy. The room was close and hot, and smelled as though a frog had died in it (it had, you know). Princess lay on her bed, looking pale and feverish. After a cursory exam, the physician explained that he would do all he could for her, though he could have done more if only he had been called sooner. (The physician, by the way, always made this remark, no matter how quickly he was called; it was his insurance against being blamed for a death.)

It should be noted, to the physician's benefit, that he lost no time in applying his well-tried and proven methods. He bled the princess copiously; he forced her to drink noxious concoctions of herbs and weeds; he filled the air with incense and other vapors till one couldn't enter the room without experiencing a fit of choking (especially as the fumes were mingled with the aroma of dead frog). In short, he applied his methods with such zeal and energy that within a week he not only succeeded in putting Princess out of her misery, but also out of everyone else's misery. And so Princess went the way of the poor frog.

The king, throughout his daughter's illness, had become so distraught and distracted that he left the affairs of state (and of the queen) in the capable hands of his minister. He worried constantly, to a degree about his daughter's health, but mainly about his own, whether he would catch whatever she had. He couldn't sleep at nights for worrying; he lost his appetite; he sat about listlessly. The day of Princess's funeral was cold and overcast, with a fine drizzle, and the king caught a violent cold. (The unfortunate frog had no such burial arrangements. I think one of the servants threw it out, but I can't be sure.)
Anxious to avoid his daughter's fate, the king sent immediately for the Royal Physician. The minister, being a shrewd man, advised the physician that he should double his efforts in trying to save the king. Thus encouraged, the physician managed to dispatch the king in half the time that it took for the daughter. And so the king too went the way of the poor frog.

This was a very happy ending for William, the king's minister. You see, he had always wanted to be king, but that's a tough job to get if you're not born into it. He had been working his way up for some time, using every method at his disposal, but there's only so far you can go with a live king on the throne. This whole affair of the frog had saved William countless hours of plotting and scheming, along with the considerable risks of doing in the king himself. Now, as the king had no heir, he was able to assume the mantle of leadership with little opposition, and he sealed the position by marrying the queen (after a suitable mourning period, of course). This had an added benefit, for the queen was still quite an attractive woman, and King William had enjoyed her company regularly in the past. He even managed to have the governess kept on as a domestic servant, for which she was very grateful indeed.

Even the kingdom benefited from this turn of events, for William proved to be a much better ruler than the previous king, and those skills which had served him so well in his rise served him still in his dealings with other kingdoms. As a measure of his sagacity, his first act as king was to dismiss the Royal Physician.

I'm sure that there are some readers who will be distressed about the unnecessary death of the poor frog, but to them I reply that it is a small price to pay for the happiness of an entire kingdom. Had it been two frogs, thenÉ well, we won't get into hypothetical situations. It was just one frog, and I firmly believe that in this case the end justified the means.
Now, I've been informed, by those who are knowledgeable in such matters, that a fairy-tale should end with a moral. As I have no desire to circumvent the rules, I perused this tale to see what lessons, if any, may be garnered from it. In deference to the poor frog, I will give the moral from its perspective: Beware of humans, or A prison of jewels is still a pri