bed, he crept up to her, and said, ‘I am tired, and I want to go to sleep as well as you. Lift me up, or I will tell your father.’
She was very angry, picked him up, and threw him with all her might against the wall, saying, ‘You may rest there as well as you can, you hideous Frog.’ But when he fell to the ground, he was no longer a hideous Frog, but a handsome Prince with beautiful friendly eyes.
And at her father’s wish he became her beloved companion and husband. He told her that he had been bewitched by a wicked fairy, and nobody could have released him from the spells but she herself.
Next morning, when the sun rose, a coach drove up drawn by eight. milk-white horses, with white ostrich plumes on their heads, and golden harness. Behind stood faithful Henry, the Prince’s body-servant. The faithful fellow had been so distressed when his master was changed into a Frog, that he had caused three iron bands to be placed round his heart, lest it should break from grief and pain.
The coach had come to carry the young pair back into the Prince’s own kingdom. The faithful Henry helped both of them into the coach and mounted again behind, delighted at his master’s deliverance.
They had only gone a little way when the Prince heard a cracking behind him, as if something were breaking. He turned round, and cried—
“No, Sir, the coach is safe, I say,
A band from my heart has fall’n in twain,
For long I suffered woe and pain,
While you a frog within a well
Enchanted were by witch’s spell!”’
Once more he heard the same snapping and cracking, and then again. The Prince thought it must be some part of the carriage giving way, but it was only the bands round faithful Henry’s heart which were snapping, because of his great joy at his master’s deliverance and happiness.
