"The Little Frogs" is a traditional Swedish dance song performed at midsummer, where the participants dance around the maypole. The dance involves movements that illustrate body parts that frogs lack, namely "ears" (öron) and "tails" (svansar). Occasionally, "The Little Frogs" is also sung at Christmas, but instead of dancing around the maypole, Swedes dance around the Christmas tree.
The melody originates from the refrain of a military march from the French Revolution, "La Chanson de l'Oignon", with the text "Au pas, camarade, au pas camarade / au pas, au pas, au pas!" ("In step, comrade"). The enemies of the French at the time, the British, changed the text with condescending irony to "Au pas, grenouilles!" ("In step, little frogs"). The melody is still in use in a French children's song with the original lyrics "Au pas camarades", and is also used on military occasions. It is not known how the melody ended up in Sweden, but the Swedish lyrics are clearly inspired by the English version.
In popular culture[]
Although the song is not often performed outside Sweden, hundreds of examples of people singing and dancing "Små grodorna" have been uploaded to YouTube, and the performance groups range in size from backyard family parties to multiple thousands gathered in fields and public parks. It has also been sung by Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie during an episode of the game Prop Hunt. The actress Caroline Lagerfelt can be heard singing the song in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. In the film, Peter Stormare plays an eye doctor and Lagerfelt plays his nurse. She subsequently replaces the "ears" (öron) mentioned in the song with "eyes" (ögon).