The Frog Prince

スリランカ(Sri Lanka) ／本文の言語英語／原話の言語 si ／出典の刊年 1910 ／ 1,300 語

出典と権利

出典の本	Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume 1
提供	Project Gutenberg ／ https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56614
採集・編者	Henry Parker
翻訳	Henry Parker
刊年の根拠	扉に『LONDON LUZAC & CO … 1910』
権利状態	Public Domain (United States)(US)／確認日 2026-09-14
地図上の位置	緯度 7.9 / 経度 80.7(精度 `culture_region`)。話の舞台でも採集地でもなく、この本が扱う文化圏のおおよその中心である。

本文

Project Gutenberg の本文から、PG のヘッダ・フッタ・商標文言を除いたもの。段落は原文のままである。

At a city there is a certain King; a widow lives at a house near his palace. She subsists by going to this royal palace and pounding rice there; having handed it over she takes away the rice powder and lives on it.

During the time while she was getting a living in this way she bore a frog, which she reared there. When it was grown up, the King of that city caused this proclamation to be made by beat of tom-toms: "I will give half my kingdom, and goods amounting to an elephant's load, to the person who brings the Jewelled Golden Cock [17] that is at the house of the Rakshasi (Ogress)."

Every one said of it that it could not be done. The widow's Frog having heard the King's proclamation, said to the widow, "Mother, I will bring the Jewelled Golden Cock. Cook a bundle of rice and give me it." Having heard the Frog's words, the widow cooked a bundle of rice and gave it to him.

The Frog took the bundle of rice, and hanging it from his shoulder went to an Indi (wild Date) tree, scraped the leaf off a Date spike (the mid-rib of the leaf), and strung the rice on it. While going away after stringing it, the Frog then became like a very good-looking royal Prince, and a horse and clothing for him made their appearance there. Putting on the clothes he mounted the horse, and making it bound along he went on till he came to a city.

Hearing that he had arrived, the King of that city prepared quarters for this Prince to stay at, and having given him ample food and drink, asked, "Where art thou going?"

Then the Prince said: "The King of our city has made a proclamation by beat of tom-toms, that he will give half his kingdom and an elephant's load of gold to the person who brings him the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the Rakshasi's house. Because of it I am going to fetch the Jewelled Golden Cock."

The King, being pleased with the Prince on account of it, gave him a piece of charcoal. "Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi while returning after taking the Jewelled Golden Cock, tell this piece of charcoal to be created a fire-fence, and cast it down," he said. Taking it, he went to another city.

The King of that city in that very manner having prepared quarters, and made ready and given him food and drink, asked, "Where art thou going?" The Prince replied in the same words, "I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the house of the Rakshasi." That King also being pleased on account of it gave him a stone, "Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi, tell this stone to be created a mountain, and cast it down," he said.

Taking the charcoal and the stone which those two Kings gave him, he went to yet another city. The King also in that very manner having given him quarters, and food and drink, asked, "Where art thou going?" The Prince in that very way said, "I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock." That King also being greatly pleased gave him a thorn. "Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi, tell a thorn fence to be created, and cast down this thorn," he said.

On the next day he went to the house of the Rakshasi. She was not at home; the Rakshasi's daughter was there. That girl having seen the Prince coming and not knowing him, asked, "Elder brother, elder brother, where are you going?"

The Prince said, "Younger sister, I am not going anywhere whatever. I came to beg at your hands the Jewelled Golden Cock which you have got."

To that she replied, "Elder brother, to-day indeed I am unable to give it. To-morrow I can. Should my mother come now she will eat you; for that reason come and hide yourself."

Calling him into the house, she put him in a large trunk at the bottom of seven trunks, and shut him up in it.

After a little time had passed, the Rakshasi came back. Having come and seen that the Prince's horse was there, she asked her daughter, "Whose is this horse?"

Then the Rakshasi's daughter replied, "Nobody's whatever. It came out of the jungle, and I caught it to ride on."

The Rakshasi having said, "If so, it is good," came in. While lying down to sleep at night the sweet odour of the Prince having reached the Rakshasi, she said to her daughter, "What is this, Bola? [18] A smell of a fresh human body is coming to me."

Then the Rakshasi's daughter said, "What, mother! Do you say so? You are constantly eating fresh bodies; how can there not be an odour of them?"

After that, the Rakshasi, taking those words for the truth, went to sleep.

At dawn on the following day, as soon as she arose the Rakshasi went to seek human flesh for food. After she had gone, the Rakshasa-daughter, taking out the Prince who was shut up in the box, told that Prince a device on going away with the Jewelled Golden Cock: "Elder brother, if you are going away with the Cock, take some cords and fasten them round my shoulders. Having put them round me, take the Cock, and having mounted the horse go off, making him bound quickly. When you have gone I shall cry out. Mother comes when I give three calls. After she has come, loosening me will occupy much time; then you will be able to get away."

In the way she said, the Prince tied the Rakshasa-daughter, and taking the Jewelled Golden Cock mounted the horse, and making it bound quickly came away.

As that Rakshasa-daughter said, while she was calling out the Rakshasi came. Having come, after she looked about [she found that] the Rakshasa-daughter was tied, and the Jewelled Golden Cock had been taken away. After she had asked, "Who was it? Who took it?" the Rakshasa-daughter said, "I don't know who it was." After that, she very quickly unfastened the Rakshasa-daughter, and both of them came running to eat that Prince.

The Prince was unable to go quickly. While going, the Prince turned round, and on looking back saw that this Rakshasi and the Rakshasa-daughter were coming running to eat that Prince.

After that, he cast down the thorn which the above-mentioned King of the third city gave him, having told a thorn fence to be created. A thorn fence was created. Having jumped over it they came on.

After that, when he had put down the piece of stone which the King of the second city gave him, and told a mountain to be created, a mountain was created. They sprang over that mountain also, and came on.

After that, he cast down the charcoal which the King of the first city gave him, having told a fire fence to be created. In that very manner a fire fence was created. Having come to it, while jumping over it both of them were burnt and died.

From that place the Prince came along. While coming, he arrived at the Indi tree on which he had threaded the rice, and having taken off it all that dried-up rice he began to eat it. On coming to the end of it, the person who was like that Prince again became a Frog.

After he became a Frog, the clothes that he was wearing, and the horse, and the Jewelled Golden Cock vanished. Out of grief on that account that Frog died at that very place.

本に付いていた註

North-western Province.



In the Jataka story No. 159 (vol. ii, p. 23) there is a tale of a
Golden Peacock which lived upon a golden hill. A King got it caught
and informed it that the reason was because "Your colour is golden;
therefore (so it is said) those who eat your flesh become young and
live so for ever."

In the story No. 491 (vol. iv, p. 210) the chick is described as "of
the colour of gold, with two eyes like gunja fruit, and a coral beak,
and three red streaks ran down his throat and down the middle of his
back." On p. 212, it is said that "they who eat his flesh will be
ever young and immortal." This one lived in the Himalayas for seven
thousand years.

In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesa Sastri), p. 56, a Queen bore
a Tortoise Prince who had the power of leaving his shell. At p. 141,
a Queen also bore a Tortoise, which was reared by her, and eventually
went in search of divine Parijata flowers (Erythrina indica) from a
tree which grew in Indra's heaven. He seems to have been a turtle and
not a tortoise, being described as swimming for weeks across the Seven
Seas. He climbed Udayagiri, the Mountain of the Dawn, and blocked the
way of the Sun-god (who rises from behind it), in honour of whom he
uttered 1,008 praises. Pleased with this, the deity gave him a splendid
divine body like a man's, and the power to resume his tortoise shape
at will; he directed him to a sage, who sent him to another, and this
one to a third, by whose advice he secured the love and assistance
of a divine nymph, an Apsaras, by concealing her robes when a party
of them were bathing. With her aid he obtained the heavenly flowers.

In Old Deccan Days, Ganges Valley (Frere), p. 69, a Prince, using a
wand belonging to a Rakshasi, created in order to stop her pursuit,
a river, a mountain, and apparently a forest. Lastly, by throwing
down three of her hairs that he had secured he set the trees on fire,
and she was burnt in the flames.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), p. 360 ff., the daughter of a
Rakshasa King gave the Prince who wanted to marry her "some earth,
some water, some thorns, and some fire, and her own fleet horse,"
telling him how to use them. He was chased by the brother of the King,
whom he went to invite to the wedding. When he threw down the earth
a mountain was produced behind him; the water became a great river;
the thorns a dense thorny wood. When the Rakshasa emerged from the
wood and was coming on, the Prince threw down the fire, which set the
bushes and trees in front of him ablaze, and finding this difficult
to cross he returned home, "tired and terrified."

緊張のうつりかわり

本文を 12 等分し、張りつめた語(死・血・恐れ・剣…)から和らいだ語(祝い・眠り・婚礼…)を引いて、話の中で 0〜1 に均したもの。自前の辞書である。翻訳を経た本文を測っているので、これは原話ではなくこの訳の性質である。

縦は緊張度(この話の中での相対値。話をまたいで比べられる量ではない)、横は本文の進行。上端の小さな字は、その区画で不釣り合いに多く出た出来事語である。

出来事の並び(数え上げ)

区画ごとに、コーパス全体の出現率に対して不釣り合いに多く出た引き金語を採っている。生の回数で採ると、`father`/`mother` を持つ Family がほぼ全区画で勝つ(実測)。

Family→Gift→Gift→Gift→Family→Family→Family→Gift→Transformation

似ている民話

多言語 Embedding のコサイン近傍。類似度は歴史的な起源や伝播を証明する値ではない。同じ本の話は文体を共有するぶん必ず似るので、そう分かるよう印を付けてある。

#	題名	文化圏	類似度	出典
1	The Seven Princesses	スリランカ	0.963	同じ本
2	The Prince who Did Not Go to School	スリランカ	0.962	同じ本
3	Strike but Hear	ベンガル	0.959	別の本
4	The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead	ベンガル	0.956	別の本
5	The Aet-kanda Leniya [103]	スリランカ	0.956	同じ本
6	The Glass Princess	スリランカ	0.956	同じ本
7	The Black Storks' Girl	スリランカ	0.955	同じ本
8	The Turtle Dove	スリランカ	0.955	同じ本
9	The Man who wished to be Perfect	ベンガル	0.954	別の本
10	The Boy whom Seven Mothers suckled	ベンガル	0.954	別の本
11	Mr. Janel Siñña	スリランカ	0.954	同じ本
12	The Story of the Rakshasas	ベンガル	0.953	別の本

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