AMD 4 - Carsten Sprunger

For this AMD, I read the first few pages of a new book I ordered called Selected Folktales by the Grimm brothers. Through that link you could buy the book for about $9 and also preview the first pages. The way I've been reading it is similar to how we read the Kangaroo book, except I do it in smaller bits. I read a sentence or two quickly, and then I go back and work out the details with the given translation. I've heavily marked up my book with vocab and expressions. I'm hoping this will be helpful. The stories are written in the simple past (narrative past) tense for the most part (but of course you'll see the present and perfect tenses, like we've done, in dialogue in the book). I suppose for the rest of the blog I'll just paraphrase in English what I've read so far of the first tale called Der Froschkönig oder der eiserne Heinrich which in English is The Frog King; or, Iron Henry. I'm pretty sure it's what we know as The Frog Prince. It takes a long time to read this stuff. I thought I'd get through the whole story, but I only got about halfway through it so far.

A long time ago there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful. But the youngest was most beautiful. When she was bored, she went into the woods and lay under the rim of a cool well, throwing her golden ball in the air and catching it. But once, she threw the ball and it hit the ground and rolled past into the well. The well was so deep that you couldn't see the ground. She started crying really loud and then heard a voice that asked her why she was crying. She looked around and then spotted a fat, ugly frog. He told her he could help her, but he asked what she would give in return. She offered her pearls and jewels, even her golden crown, but he wasn't interested in that. He said that if she promised to love him and be his companion and do everything with him, then he would go fetch her ball. She agreed, thinking in her head that he could never be a companion to any human. He's just a frog who sits with his own kind all day.