When the step-daughter went to the door there was the little frog. She brought him in in spite of her step-mother; took him on her knee and fed him with bits from her plate. After a while he sang
"Come, let us go to bed,
My own sweet, sweet one."
So, unknown to her step-mother, she laid him at the foot of her bed, as she said he was a poor, harmless thing. Then she fell asleep and forgot all about him. Next morning there stood a beautiful prince, who said he had been enchanted by a wicked fairy and was to be a frog till a girl would let him sleep with her. They were married, and lived happily in his beautiful castle ever after." This is one of the few folk-stories I have been able to collect from the lips of a living story-teller in England.
[A] There is a traditional air to which these lines are always sung.
[77] See also notes in the Introduction.
[78] There is a similar incident in Grimm, "The Sea Hare," where a fox changes himself by dipping in a spring.
[79] In Finland they say that if two persons shake hands across the threshold they will quarrel. In East Bothnia, when the cows are taken out of their winter quarters for the first time, an iron bar is laid before the threshold, over which all the cows must pass, for if they do not, there will be nothing but trouble with them all the following summer. Cf. Suomen Muinaismuisto Yhdistyksen Aikakauskirja, v. p. 99.
[80] On entering a house, especially a royal house, it is improper to use the left foot on first stepping into it; one must "put one's best (or right) foot foremost." Malagasy Folk-Lore, p. 37. Folk-Lore Record 1879.
[81] The "párta" is a head-dress worn by unmarried women only, in the shape of a "diadem" of the ancients in silk, satin, or velvet, and generally embroidered