(no subject)
The concept of the transformative power of a kiss is, of course, well documented in mythology and folklore. Jacob Grimm refers to situations where
someone “in some disgusting shape, as a snake, dragon, toad or frog, has to be
kissed three times” (Grimm, 3: 969), and there are certainly folktales “that
relate to transformation of Princes into beasts, and their release through
woman’s love. . . . It [the animal] can be released on one condition only—that
a fair maid shall kiss it on the lips” (Baring-Gould, 74).3 Lutz Röhrich also
stresses the fact that variants other than that of the Brothers Grimm fall much
more in line with the so-called animal bridegroom cycle of fairy tales (ATU
425), where the princess must first show love to bring about the animal’s
transformation—that is, she has to kiss the frog or at least let him sleep next to
her for three nights (Röhrich, Wage es, den Frosch zu küssen, 40).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/marvelstales.28.1.0104