very carefully, confessed that the frog must be of a good family. And the King's old and trusted councillor, who in vain was ordered three times to hold his tongue, declared that the frog must be gifted with the spirit of prophecy, for that one could read on his back whether there was to be a severe or a mild winter, which, to be sure, is more than can be read on the back of the man who writes the weather almanack.