Frogs and Toads
FROGS AND TOADS. The frog or toad is a lunar animal par excellence. Its shape or behavior is reminiscent of the moon; it swells and shrinks, submerges under water but emerges again, and hides under the ground in winter but reappears in spring. The frog lives according to the lunar rhythm. In fact, a great many myths speak of a frog in the moon. According to the Chinese, the moon has not only an evergreen cassia tree and a rabbit but also a frog inside it. Thus the Tianwen section of the Chuzi (fourth or third century BCE) asks: "What is the peculiar virtue of the moon, the brightness of the night, which causes it to grow once more after its death? What does it advantage to keep a frog in its belly?"
The frog, then, is naturally associated with all sorts of aquatic elements such as water, rain, ocean, and flood. Frogs are said to croak incessantly before it rains, or to announce or bring rain by croaking. They are usually mentioned in the innumerable rites for inducing rain. North American Indians see in the moon the primeval toad, which contained all the waters and caused the flood by discharging them over the earth. According to the Kurnai of southeastern Australia, once upon a time all the waters were swallowed by a huge frog; the other animals tried in vain to make him laugh until the eel danced about, twisting itself into the most ridiculous contortions, whereupon the frog burst into laughter and the waters rushed out of his mouth and produced the flood. The frog sometimes plays a part in the precosmogonic period when there is nothing but water. A Huron myth narrates how several animals descended in vain into the primeval waters, until the toad returned successfully with a little soil in its mouth; the soil was placed on the back of the tortoise, and the miraculous growth of the land then began.
Significantly, the frog is also associated with the principles of evil and death. According to Altaic beliefs, the creation of man and woman by the god Ülgen was marred by the devil Erlik. Consequently, the god decided to destroy them, but changed his mind when a frog proposed that humankind exist under the curse of mortality. In Iranian mythology the frog appears as a symbol or embodiment of the evil spirit or the most important of its creatures. In Inner Asian cosmogonic myths—apparently colored by Iranian influence—frogs are among those animals that, together with lizards, worms, and mice, come out of the hole made in the earth by the satanic figure. In Africa the frog emerges sometimes as the messenger of death. At the time of beginning, say the Ekoi of Nigeria, the duck was charged by God with a message of immortality to humankind, whereas the frog was given a message of death. The frog got to the earth first, delivered his message, and thus brought death to humankind.
Bibliography
There is much useful material in volume 2 of Robert Briffault's The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions, 3 vols. (1927; reprint, New York, 1969), pp. 634ff. Mircea Eliade has discussed frog symbolism in Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York, 1958), pp. 160ff. See also Lutz Röhrich's "Hund, Pferd, Kröte und Schlange als symbolische Leitgestalten in Volksglauben und Sage," Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 3 (1951): 69–76.
New Sources
Ribouli, Patricia, and Maria Robbiani. Frogs: Art, Legend, History, translated by John Gilbert. Boston, 1991.
This is the complete article, containing 581 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
