"Königstochter, jüngste, mach mir auf,
Weisst du nicht wie gestern du zu mir gesagt
Bei dem kühlen Brunnenwasser?
Königstochter, jüngste, mach mir auf."
There is not much difference in the song, but the moral tone of the
German is much higher. The frog restores the princess's golden ball,
which has fallen into the well, on her promising to do all those things
which he afterwards demands; and the king insists on her compliance,
because a promise is sacred, when made even to a frog. Our farmer
contradicts his daughter's inclinations to the verge, or perhaps beyond
the verge, of decorum, on the speculation of "what it may come to at
last." To be sure, if the Oxfordshire version is correct, she gets only
a sportsman for a husband.