One day a poor woman went to the Garam to wash. There she saw a frog as big as the world. She couldn't help it:
- Hey, frog, frog! I'd go as a frog for you, if you'd go as a frog for me.
On the third day a drowned man comes to the poor woman and tells her that the frog has a daughter, and that she should come and be her husband, as she promised.
The poor woman left.
They walked and walked all the way to the Garam. There, the drowned man hit the water with a small stick, and the Garam immediately split in two. A nice dry road separated them.
They set off on the dry road. When they reached the middle of the riverbed, a large stone stood in their way. But the drowned man struck it with the stick, the big stone rolled away, and underneath was a big hole. In it lived the frog.
As the poor woman went into the hole, she found the frog in the first house. She was lying on a bed made of dry frog fibre, and beside her, in a shiny frog's pot, was her little fetus. His mother rocked him and cuddled him, "Brekeke, breke, tuoo! Otherwise the room was a mess.
The poor woman picked up her goddaughter, and hated the hideous little thing, but she kissed her, and then lifted her up and said:
Oh pretty little thing,
Beautiful pearl,
For your parents' pleasure
Grow big for the year!
And the frog asked his comrade to clean his house, but not to take the rubbish away, but to take it home. He should even sweep his other room, but be careful not to turn over a pot or take the lid off one of them. With that the frog turned against the wall and fell asleep.
The poor woman goes into the other room. She sees many pots on the shelves; they were all green glazed silks, covered with green glazed lids. She could not resist looking at what was in them.
He went straight to the shelf, took the lid off the first shelf, and out of it popped a snow-white soul and said in a whisper:
- May God make you pay! - and it's gone.
He took the lid off the other one. A snow-white soul came out of that one, too, it said:
- May God make you pay! - and that too is gone. So he scraped out all the silks one by one. And from each one a soul flew away, and each one said:
- May God make you pay!
The poor woman had already turned to leave the room when she saw another double-potted pot covered with a lid by the door. She immediately took the lids off it, and the souls of her twin children spilled out. The poor woman was very mad, for she had buried them only two years before. They fell into the Garam at the same time.
They told their mother that as soon as they drowned, the frog caught their souls and kept them locked up here, so that they could not go to heaven. For until their souls got to heaven, the Garam would not cast out their dead bodies. Until then, the drowned must serve the frog.
Then the poor woman put the two little souls back into the double-pot, covered them up, and put them in her apron between the swept-up rubbish.
Then he said goodbye to the frog. But as he came out of the hole, he found the drowned frog was no longer there. But the river split in two before him, for two fish joined hands and split the water in two.
When the poor woman reached the shore, the Garam was again swollen. She took the lid off the double-pot, the children's souls spilled out. And in that instant, the Garam threw two children's bodies onto the stones. The blessing of the souls of the little souls became tangible; God paid the poor woman for her good deed, the child-souls went back to the child-bodies.
Again, the poor woman had a son and a daughter and money. For all the rubbish she had swept up at the frog's house had turned to gold and silver in her apron by the time they got home.
After that they had a very good time, they didn't need anything.
(Vilmos Radó: Hungarian Children's and Folk Tales, First Collection - Singer and Wolfner Publishing; Budapest, Andrássy út 10, VI.)
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