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15Aesop's Fables¹  

The Frogs who wanted a King

By Rob John

The Frogs should have been happy. 

It was summer, they had plenty to eat and nothing much to do except mess about in the cool clear water of their pool. They should have been very happy indeed...but  they weren’t.

‘Being a  frog’s a bit boring actu-ally,’ said a  frog .

‘Yeah. It’s just eating and swim-ming basically,’ said another. 

‘What’s the point? Why are we here? Why can’t life be more excit-ing?’ 

‘If only we had a leader,’ said a fat bullfrog. ‘If we had a leader he’d tell us what to do .’

‘That’s right,’ said another Frog. 

‘If we had a leader he’d organise²...parties and...plays and...picnics and errr...

‘Of course what we really  need......in an ideal world,’ said the bullfrog, ‘ is a  King.’

The frogs all gasped³. A king! 

Imagine! Their very own king with a crown on his head, giving orders and telling them all what to do.

‘So how do we get a king?’ said the  little  frog.

‘To get a  King,’ said the  bullfrog, 

‘you need to go to the top.’

The Frogs knew what the bullfrog meant. The king of all the gods was called Jupiter. If you needed to go to the top you couldn’t go any higher than Jupiter.

Later that afternoon the frogs watched as the  bullfrog then climbed up onto a rock and cleared his throat. 

‘Excuse me,’ he shouted in his loudest voice. ‘Excuse me ,  Jupiter......we were wondering if we  could have a  King? Please,’ said the bullfrog.

Jupiter was very busy and didn’t want to be bothered but he knew that if he didn’t give those  frogs something they’d keep croaking⁴ on and on and on...so he said:

‘Alright! Enough! You want a  King?  Well have this one!’

Into the pond fell a huge log of wood. 

‘Wow!’ said the  little  frog. ‘Look how big our King is !’ 

‘He’s enormous,’ said the  bullfrog. 

All day the  frogs swam around their enormous King and waited for him to speak but the new  King didn’t say a word.

‘He’s a bit quiet in’t he?’ said the little  frog ‘...for a  King.’ 

‘Yeah,’ they all agreed. ‘He’s a bit quiet. ’

Days went past and the new king never said a word. In fact he didn’t even move and after a while the frogs stopped thinking of him as a king and started using him as a diving platform and sunbathing⁵ area.

‘I don’t think this  King is much good to be honest,’ said one of the younger frogs.

‘Yes,’ said somebody else. ‘Tell Jupiter that frogs deserve a proper king who’ll move about and be powerful and strong and frighten-ing and...’

Now Jupiter was listening to all this and these noisy ungrateful  frogs were making him very angry in-deed. He lifted his right hand.

‘You want a frightening king do you frogs?’ he said. ‘Well try this one for size.’

From out of the sky came a huge white stork⁶, the biggest bird they’d ever seen. The  frogs ran in terror as the stork started gobbling them up in his huge beak⁷. 

‘Please, Lord Jupiter,’ said the bull-frog. ‘Save us. Take away this terrible  King.’

‘Do you see now?’ said Jupiter. 

‘Better to have no king at all than a cruel one. ’

But the frogs weren’t listening ... ...they’d all disappeared.