In Denmark frogs have not always been really so very popular. Well, except Kermit the Muppet, of course. But it was never so hot to eat Kermit’s hind legs, as they do in France.

In this small country – too small for frogs, you might say – these strange, little amfibiae with loud voices and wide mouths have throughout centuries been largely ignored; they were just there, like stones and branches and leaves that you might meet passing by on your way through your day and your life. They meant no trouble nor pleasure. They were just there.

Of course the world has changed. Today Kermit’s offspring is very unpopular among entrepreneurs and likewise popular among opponents to any large, brutal building or excavating project. Because protection of certain frogs may stop these pro- jects, or raise the costs of going through with them considerably.

In Denmark we have a very little man with a very big mouth. And a very loud voice. The length of his legs, I don’t know anything about. Rasmus Paludan hates brown people, and he has burnt several Korans in public, travelling with his hate speech and racism show, calling muslim women, whores and their little children, monkey’s brats.

He ran for a seat in the Danish Folketinget – in vain, luckily – and his provocations and the protesting demonstrations ,thereagainst, cost the state about 100 million Kroner, because we had to protect this special species of small, big mouthed creatures, who share the freedom of speech – misusing it – with the rest of us.

His legs were long enough to jump out of the country, though, and we took a deep breath of release.
Now our brothers and sisters in neighbouring Sweden have taken over the widemouthed problem. Rasmus Paludan has become a Swedish citizen, and now he causes a great amount of problems over there at the neighbours’.

He wags a tail of violent demonstrations behind him in Sweden, some of which are just plain riots. We sent Pandora’s Box on to Sweden. Sorry about that, brother-people.

As opposed to the frog, the stork has always been very popular, well, emblematic, to the Danes. We love the stork, we write songs about him, he’s a national symbol, nesting on roofs or high poles raised for the same purpose; an image of the idyllic side of our self-understanding.

Well, entrepreneurs love the stork, too, I suppose, because he eats frogs. The fewer frogs; the more big, brutal building without interference. Unfortunately, it’s the other way around, the storks are getting fewer and the frogs more. There’s always another wide-mouthed frog.

Stork is hungry, meets the frog in the meadow, asks him: Have you seen any wide-mouthed frogs around recently? Frog thinks for a moment and in stead of saying “Naaah” or just “No,” he says, “Nyyy,” pursing his lips.

That’s the kind of frog we like in Denmark. The not so the wide-mouthed kind, but the quieter kind.

(Feature/Danish: Wide Mouth Frogs)