A man named Yochanan sat at the bedside of his dying father. The father made one strange request. "When I am gone, go to the marketplace on a day you choose, and whatever is the first thing offered for sale, buy it, no matter the price."
Yochanan honored the wish. On the first market day after his father's death, he went. The first seller he encountered was holding out a small frog. The frog was ordinary. The seller wanted a great deal of money for it. Yochanan remembered his father's instruction and paid the absurd price.
He took the frog home in a jar. Overnight the frog grew. By morning it was the size of a dog. By the following week it was the size of an ox. By the end of a month it was as big as a house, and it ate everything it was offered. Yochanan had spent every coin he had buying food for this creature. He was ruined.
The day came when Yochanan could offer nothing more. He apologized to the frog. He said he was sorry he could not keep feeding it. "You have been generous beyond what any man should have given," the frog said, speaking for the first time. "Now I will be generous in return."
The frog was, in truth, a bewitched princess under a spell. Yochanan's patience had broken the enchantment. She was transformed back into a young woman of royal birth. She passed many adventures with Yochanan at her side, and the two were eventually married. He became a king through her. The story belongs to the folk traditions collected in Codex Gaster 185 and preserved in Gaster's Exempla as a reminder of how literally the commandment to honor one's father can be taken. A dying wish, obeyed even when it looks ridiculous, can carry a son to a throne.