Misadventures in the Land of Fables #76

It must be two years since I wrote a version of Aesop’s ‘The Frogs who wanted a King’. A few days ago I saw this illustration (above) from a trading card in the mid-1920s. It must have been inspired by the same fable and it prompted me to produce another of my own, with the same characters, the frogs and the heron.

I’d forgotten the theme of the earlier work was the conflict between pursuit of pleasure and moral order. The new one is not unrelated. Frogs inclined to merrymaking provoke a reaction from those who are suspicious of pleasure. (I wonder if this association is the result of stumbling on the spectacle of tumescent frogs spilling out from ponds to forest paths, squirming in groups of two and three and more, seemingly unguarded, consumed by libidinal upsurge, though the merrymaking is rather more innocent in the text.)

There are other themes, or lessons, to be had, in particular on the question of whether relations between two parties must remain fixed, whether an ex-offender can be trusted, or an antagonist become a friend. As usual, I will let you decide for yourselves.

You can read the new fable here: ‘Le Toboggan‘