The Well ‘O The World’s End

So, The Well ‘O The World’s End, the only version of Princess and the Frog that I can stand! I didn’t expect to find a version of this I liked either. But I’m kind of thrilled that I did! It even features a sympathetic parental figure, which yes!

An old widow lives alone with her daughter in a small cottage, and one day the woman decides she would like to make some cakes. The only problem is, right after she has gotten most of the ingredients together, she realizes there is no water in the house.

Oh, I HATE it when this happens. You get started on a recipe and you realize you’re missing a key ingredient. God, I’m having flashbacks.

The mother goes outside to her daughter and hand her the jug and asks her to go to the Well o’ the World’s End, because the water is supposed to produce the best cakes or something. It is a long way from their house to the well, leaving me wondering why they don’t just try a closer water source just this once, and the girl is tired out by the time she reaches it. She finds out that the well is dried up, and she sits down and begins to cry, being both extremely tired and extremely annoyed. The story says that she didn’t know where to get more water, so maybe that explains things; there actually isn’t another water source in the area. Maybe a drought?

Anyway, the frog takes her crying as his cue to show up. He offers to help her if she’ll marry him, and she agrees, because fairy tale logic!

The frog jumps down to the bottom of the well, and the well becomes full to the brim. She fills the jug and goes back home without worrying about it much. That changes, however, when she and her mother are about to go to bed and she hears a knock on the door. She hears a voice sing:

“Open the door, my hinnie, my heart, Open the door, my own true love, And remember the promise that you and I made, down in the meadow, where we two met.”

Hinnie, is apparently, a Scottish/northern English word for sweetheart? I think?

The girl, feeling rather frightened, assures her mother that it’s just a frog. The mother, apparently very chill with the concept of talking animals, feels sorry for the frog and tells the daughter to let the frog in.

This. This is why I love the story better than its other variants. The mother doesn’t force her to invite the frog in because she made a promise, even though the promise was made under very shady circumstances. It’s not because she hates her daughter, either. It’s just because she feels sorry for the frog.

The girl unwillingly lets the frog in, and it hops across the room to the fireside. It begins to sing again:

“Oh give me my supper, my hinnie, my heart, Oh give me my supper, my own true love; Remember the promise that we both made, Down in the meadow where we two met.”

“Give the poor beast his supper,” says the old woman. “It’s an uncommon paddock that can sing like that.”

Paddock is an archaic word for frog. In case you didn’t know

The daughter is pretty cross and very frightened by this point, though I’m not sure if she’s specifically scared of frogs, magical talking frogs, or magical talking frogs that try to bargain their way into marriage. Either way, no judgement! “I’m not going to be so silly as to feed a wet, sticky paddock,” she snaps.

“Don’t be so ill-natured and cruel,” the mother says. “Who knows how far the little beastie has travelled? And I warrant that it would like a saucerful of milk.”

The daughter gets the frog some milk. The frog starts to sing again:

“Now chop off my head, my hinnie, my heart, Chop off my head, my own true love, And remember the promise that you and I made, Down in the meadow where we two met.”

“Pay no heed, the creature’s daft,” exclaims the old woman as the daughter raises the axe to chop off the frog’s head. Am I wrong for finding this visual hilarious? She didn’t waste any time grabbing that axe, tho

The daughter chops off the head before her mother can stop her. Rather than dying, the frog is transformed into a handsome prince. The mother and daughter begin to kneel, but the prince stops them. “‘Tis I that should kneel to thee, sweetheart,” he says to the girl. Awww. He explains that he was placed under a curse by a fairy who killed his father. The curse could only be broken if a maiden agreed to marry him, let him into the house, and cut off his head. I just love all the strangely specific things people have to do to break these curses.

And of course, the girl and the prince get married. Awww.

This is probably going to be my last post for a little while, because I’ve got my SATs coming up and I need to study. (Pray for meeee, I am so underprepared) I might post intermittently or I might not post at all, it depends on how much time I actually end up having. So goodbye for now! Au revoir!

I would totally post a gif of George Wickham leaning out of his carriage and yelling “Au Revoir” but I can’t find one sorry