Waldorf News

The Frog King or Iron Henry

The Frog King or Iron Henry

By Marko Pogacnik

Close by the king’s castle lay a great dark forest. In the middle of the forest was a very old and very deep well, where the king’s youngest daughter would go when the day was particularly warm. She sat down by the side of the well, and when she was bored, she took a golden ball in her hand, and threw it up in the air.

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But on one occasion, the princess’ golden ball did not fall back into her outstretched hands, but past them into the darkness of the deep well, and lay in the mud at the bottom. The king’s daughter followed it with her eyes, but the well was so deep that the bottom could no be seen. At this she began to cry, and cried louder and louder, and could not be comforted. And as she thus lamented, when heard a strange voice: “What ails you so, daughter of the king? Your weeping would even move a stone to pity.”

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The opening passage of the story brilliantly describes the distress in which the soul essence of a human being finds itself during its embodiment in matter. The king’s daughter represents a human being existing in the spaces of eternity before it decides to descend the path of embodiment towards the density of matter. The golden ball which the princess throws towards the sky is a sign of perfection and speaks of the state which the soul enjoys in the primeval space of eternity before embarking on the path of embodiment. The sphere is the most perfect of all forms, and gold the most precious of all minerals.

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The fall of the sphere into a deep, dark, narrow well is symbolic of the landing of the soul in the earthly space, severely limited by the density of matter, equal to the experience of the soul after birth. The weeping and wailing of the princess point to the mental distress that a human being experiences, not only after birth itself, but often and repeatedly during the period of our embodiment. We yearn for the light, the freedom and the infinity of the etheric spaces where the soul essence of a human being dwells in the period between two embodiments…

Grimm’s Fairy Tales Decoded: Precious messages from the past for the future is Marko Pogacnik’s latest book.

Just published by mimosa it is available here.

The collection of essays opens up a new dimension to the best-loved fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.

Marko Pogacnik is a Slovenian artist and author of international renown. Since 2005, he has dedicated much of his work to creating Geopuncture Circles, a word-wide lithopuncture project to enhance communication with the Earth consciousness that creates together with his international colleagues. in 2016, he was appointed UNESCO Artist for Peace.