Misadventures in the Land of Fables #6

The fable of ‘The Frog and the Mouse’ exists in a bewildering number of versions – so many, and so divergent, it’s hard to identify one as definitive. If you had to start somewhere, this simple account of murder at a river crossing would be the place:

The Frog and the Mouse (translated by Laura Gibbs, available here)

A mouse asked a frog to help her get across the river. The frog tied the mouse’s front leg to her own back leg using a piece of string and they swam out to the middle of the stream. The frog then turned traitor and plunged down into the water, dragging the mouse along with her. The mouse’s dead body floated up to the surface and was drifting along when a kite flew by and noticed something he could snatch. When he grabbed the mouse he also carried off her friend the frog. Thus the treacherous frog who had betrayed the mouse’s life was likewise killed and eaten.
For people who do harm to others and destroy themselves in the bargain

The story contains the elements common to all versions—the two protagonists, a watery climax, and the violent intervention of a bird of prey. The narration sticks to the raw facts. You get the encounter and the outcome and little else, besides the detail of the dead body floating to the surface. The killer’s motive remains opaque. But the lesson is clear:

Warning! Don’t do harm!

Well, maybe it’s clear. Maybe it’s not. Is it a warning to those considering doing harm? If so, what will they learn? Will they be discouraged? Make a better plan would be my advice because this guy didn’t think things through. Elswhere, the emphasis is on the victim. Beware of deceivers. But I can’t say I find that particularly helpful. Much better to have guidance on the signs to look out for: who and what are we to suspect? frogs? amphibians? offers of help or hospitality? a free lunch?

Food, Inglorious Food

Other versions elaborate on the action before the two creatures reach the water. In Caxton, the mouse (or rat) is on a pilgrimage; in Henryson, the frog lures the mouse into the water with the promise of grain fields; similarly, French poet Jean de la Fontaine has the frog attempting to lure the rat (again, a rat, not a mouse!) to a banquet – their route via the marsh gives the frog the opportunity to drown its victim, but their struggle alerts a bird of prey (a kite) who makes a meal of them both.

The Gibbs collection includes a second version of the story and this also revolves around food. The two creatures appear as friends who exchange dinner invitations, the frog enjoys a feast in the larder (which the mouse considers its own), but when the frog returns the favour the mouse discovers the venue is a pond, and the frog has to persuade it into the water, where it promptly drowns.

The Trap, or the Mechanism

To overcome the mouse’s apprehension, the frog proposes they tie themselves together so that the mouse may learn to swim. The mouse agrees, but as soon as they are tied, the frog uses the string to drag the creature into the water against its will. This is the trap. The same method is very deliberately employed by La Fontaine’s frog. And yet in the Gibbs version reproduced above, the tying-together is merely a safety measure for the river crossing, not a trap. It is not instrumental in the murder. But it is the mechanism by which the frog unexpectedly meets its demise. That, and the shocking intervention of the bird of prey.

All the tellings of this tale conclude with the spectacle of the wrongdoer getting a brutal comeuppance. That seems wishful thinking to me, the action of a moral universe. But it does leave us with this macabre, memorable image of the frog and the mouse carried through the air in the claws of bird of prey (or a raven).

The Binding of Fate

If the tying-together seems like a contrivance, it can at least be justified when confronted by the danger of drowning in a river or pond. It is also an act which binds the fates of the two characters, and that on the surface is reassuring. But in Townsend’s version, the frog and mouse tie themselves together at the beginning, before they embark on their dinner dates. It becomes a gesture of friendship rather than security. And if the frog intends it as a device to kill his new friend, then he is more calculating and more treacherous the other villains.

A Love Story

The Townsend version hints at the romance of the tying-together. This symbolism is central to the text of the great Persian poet Rumi. The roles are reversed in Rumi’s account. His is a love story, and an allegory of body and soul, in which the mouse, frustrated it cannot be with the frog whenever it wishes, petitions its lover to allow themselves to be attached by a piece of string. Thus they may summon each other when the need arises. The frog consents, but the mouse is seized by a bird of prey and the frog is pulled from the pond—where it was immersed in eternal bliss—to its death. It should have resisted attachment, Rumi argues.

The symbolism of the tying-together fascinated me. The possibilities of the love story and its brutal conclusion seemed more intriguing than a tale of a wrongdoer getting his comeuppance. So I set out to investigate that emotional landscape in my own version of ‘The Frog and the Mouse‘.