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Sunday, 4 February 2018

The Frog King; or, The Iron Heinrich

On Thursday I bought the new German stamps including this year's Welfare stamps with the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale The Frog King (issued 01-02-2018).

Once upon a time there was a Princess who went to the forest to play with her favourite toy, a golden orb. She sat next to a well and throwed it in the air several times, but in one case she was not able to catch it and it fell in the well. Just when she started to cry over the loss of her toy, a Frog appeared from the deeps of the well and offered the princess to get back her golden orb if she accepts him as her friend and shares her plate and bed with him. The Princess agreed, but when she had her toy back, she forgot about the Frog and went home. 


The next day, when the Princess was at table, the Frog came to the Castle, knocked on the door and demanded the keeping of the promise. The Princess refused, but was forced by her father to do so. After they ate together, the Frog wanted to join her in the bed. The Princess refused again, but also this time her father forced her to keep her promise. So she took the Frog and went with him to her room.


In her room the Princess throwed the Frog at the wall, but it was not dead as the Princess expected. Instead the Frog turned into a beautiful young Prince, who joined the Princess in the bed. The next day Heinrich, the servant of the Prince, came to the castle and all three went to the Prince's land. Heinrich was so sad when the prince had been turned into the Frog, that he put three iron straps over his heart. During the journey to the Prince's land the straps bursted with such a noise that the Prince thought that the carriage would break.


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