Nov 29, 2016
The Frog and the Sky Princess is a story from Angola in Africa, about a frog and a princess that involves the lead character successfully completing tasks to prove his worthiness to obtain a prize – in this case the hand of the princess in marriage. Yes, it's somewhat like the classic European tale The Frog Prince, though in this case there's no metamorphosis between species. But it's also curiously similar to an American legend.
It was immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1858 narrative poem The Courtship of Miles Standish, in which military captain Miles Standish wants to court the lady Priscilla, but is a bit too shy, so he sends his friend John Alden with messages on his behalf. Priscilla is indeed won over, but it is Alden she falls for and not Standish. The characters in the story were real people – John Alden did marry Priscilla, and Miles Standish has a state park named after him in Massachusetts (we've camped there); and Longfellow claimed the story was true. But most likely it was just a folk tradition that somehow became attached to actual people.
We come to you from Greenville, South Carolina, where we're doing our annual Christmas tree sale to benefit our company. We hope things are really hopping for you, and you're having a hoppy holiday season.
Happy Listening,
Dennis (Kimana, Hawk, Sun King) and Kimberly (Narrator, Rabbit, Sky
Princess, Frog)