A man named Yochanan once kept a pet frog. The frog, according to the Rabbis, was not a frog at all. It was a child of Lilith, the demon of night.
The creature taught Yochanan. First, he learned the languages of all the birds and all the beasts. Then, before the frog departed, it called together every animal under heaven. They brought gifts — jewels from deep places, herbs from unreachable mountains, each with its own virtue. The frog taught Yochanan which stone healed what wound, which herb opened which door. Yochanan became rich. He became a favorite at the royal court.
One day the elders urged the king to marry. As if on cue, a bird flew overhead and dropped onto the king's shoulder a single long strand of gold. A woman's hair. The king swore he would marry no one but the girl from whose head that strand came. If the Jews could not find her, he would kill them all.
Yochanan volunteered. He took three loaves of bread and set out. On the road he met a starving crow and fed it. He met a starving dog and fed it. At a harbor he saw a great fish caught in a net, dying, and he bought it and cast it back into the sea.
He arrived at the palace of the golden-haired princess. She agreed to go with him — on three conditions. He must bring her flasks of the waters of Gan Eden and the waters of Gehinnom. And he must recover a ring she had once dropped into the sea.
The crow brought the flasks. The fish, enlisting Leviathan, raised the ring from the deep. But as the fish spat the ring onto dry land, a wild boar swallowed it. The dog appeared, ran the boar down, tore it open, and recovered the ring.
Yochanan returned victorious. Inside the palace, enemies at court waylaid him and killed him. The princess arrived, poured the waters of Gan Eden over his body, and brought him back to life. The king, astonished, demanded the same power. He ordered a servant to kill him and the princess to pour the water.
She poured the waters of Gehinnom instead. The king burned to ashes.
She showed the people the difference. The pious man returned from death. The wicked king burned. The people acclaimed Yochanan as their new king. He married the princess with the hair of gold.
Gaster's Exempla #316 preserves this legend. Every kindness on the journey — the crow, the dog, the fish — was the repair for a loss Yochanan could not yet see. The man who feeds the unnoticed arrives at the palace with an army.