Cupid and Psyche and The Frog King or Iron Heinrich have very distinct differences, but they both share one key similarity; a princess falls in love with a “beast”.
Cupid and Psyche is an old Greek tale about a princess named Psych who’s beauty was so great that she made the Greek goddess, Venus, jealous. Filled with envy, Venus instructs her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with a repulsive monster. He is starstruck at the sight of her, and mistakenly wounds himself with his own arrow, falling in love with the beautiful princess instead. Cupid then becomes Psyche’s “invisible” husband, whom only visits her at night when it is dark. Her sisters convince her to take a peek to see what her mysterious husband looks like and in doing so, she was distracted by his beauty and spilled hot wax, burning him. Cupid flies away and Psyche goes on a journey, instructed to complete tasks by Venus after asking for her forgiveness.
The Frog King is a Grimm fairy tale about a princess who makes a deal with a frog to assist her in exchange for love companionship. The frog hears the princess crying one day after she drops her favorite golden ball down a well. She agrees to let the frog eat and sleep with her if he gets the ball back. After she receives the ball from the frog, she breaks the deal and scurries home but to her dismay, he follows her and demands for her to hold up her end of the bargain. The king instructs the princess to follow through with the deal and as she is preparing to rest for the evening she throws the frog against the wall, transforming him into a handsome prince.
Both tales contain a “beast” that the princess ends up marrying, but the difference is there was no visible transformation, only deception, in Cupid and Psyche yet there was in The Frog King.
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