toadlore

"I went to the toad that lies under the wall,

I charmed him out, and he came at my call"
Masque, of Queens, Ben Jonson

The toad is often the focus of mystery - the cousin of the more friendly and amiably viewed frog - the toad is often viewed as a more ominous or malicious presence. They are treated with suspicion, due to their double existence in water and on land. Historically used as a term of abuse to refer to 'a contemptible or detestable person' - they are perceived as unpleasant or even odious in aspect, most likely due to their nocturnal habits.

I am a fan of the toad. There is much folklore and mythology which has grown up around it, and I find them rather endearing with their warty skin and slowness. During the medieval period toads were associated with the Devil. Their body parts and secretions were seen as having magical properties, and were commonly used as cures or for their medicinal value. So let's find out a little more about them - here's a portrait of the common toad...

"The common toad usually moves by walking rather slowly or in short shuffling jumps involving all four legs. It spends the day concealed in a lair that it has hollowed out under foliage or beneath a root or a stone where its colouring makes it inconspicuous. It emerges at dusk and may travel some distance in the dark while hunting. It is most active in wet weather. By morning it has returned to its base and may occupy the same place for several months. It is voracious and eats woodlice, slugs, beetles, caterpillars, flies, earthworms and even small mice. Small, fast moving prey may be caught by a flick of the tongue while larger items are grabbed with the jaws. Having no teeth, it swallows food whole in a series of gulps. It does not recognise its prey as such but will try to consume any small, dark coloured, moving object it encounters at night. When attacked, the common toad adopts a characteristic stance, inflating its body and standing with its hindquarters raised and its head lowered. Its chief means of defence lies in the foul tasting secretion that is produced by its paratoid glands and other glands on its skin"

Toad secretion has been used - dried and then smoked in order to produce visions. Whilst poisonous, if inhaled/ingested in small amounts it has hallucinogenic effects. The liquid toxin is removed from the glands by 'milking' the Bufo alvarius toad, descriptions of the effect can be read here, and there is an interesting theory that toad was used in this context in mesoamerica.

The toad is of course mentioned in Shakespeare's infamous witches chant from Macbeth:

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.   

Toad, that under cold stone    

Days and nights hast thirty one   

Swelter’d venom sleeping got,   

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.   

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I

.:.

the following is taken from Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling, by Charles Godfrey Leland

The toad plays a prominent part in gypsy (as in other) witchcraft, which it may well do, since in most Romany dialects there is the same word for a toad or frog, and the devil. Paspati declares that the toad suggested Satan, but I incline to think that there is some as yet undiscovered Aryan word, such as beng, for the devil, and that the German Bengel, a rascal, is a descendant from it. However, gypsies and toads are "near allied and that not wide" from one another, and sometimes their children have them for pets, which recalls the statements made in the celebrated witch trials in Sweden, where it was said by those who professed to have been at the Blockula, or Sabbat, that the little witch children were set to play at being shepherds, their flocks being of toads.

Man Extracting Magical Jewels From a Toad (1490 woodcut)

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

"As You Like It" Act 2, Scene 1 by William Shakespeare (1623)

I have been informed by gypsies that toads do really form unaccountable predilections for persons and places. The following is accurately related as it was told me in Romany fourteen years ago, in Epping Forest, by a girl. "You know, sir, that people who live out of doors all the time, as we do, see and know a great deal about such creatures. One day we went to a farmhouse, and found the wife almost dying because she thought she was bewitched by a woman who came every day in the form of a great toad to her door and looked in. And, sure enough, while she was talking the toad came, and the woman was taken in such a way with fright that I thought she'd have died. But I had a laugh to myself; for I knew that toads have such ways, and can not only be tamed, but will almost tame themselves. So we gypsies talked together in Romany, and then said we could remove the spell if she would get us a pair of shears and a cup of salt. Then we caught the toad, and tied the shears so as to make a cross—you see!—and with it threw the toad into the fire, and poured the salt on it. So the witchcraft was ended, and the lady gave us a good meal and ten shillings."


skeleton of a toad

There is a terrible tale told by R. H. Stoddard, in a poem, that one day a gentleman accidentally trod on a toad and killed it. Hearing a scream at that instant in the woods at a little distance, followed by an outcry, he went to see what was the matter, and found a gypsy camp where they were lamenting the sudden death of a child. On looking at the corpse he was horrified to observe that it presented every appearance of having been trampled to death, its wounds being the same as those he had inflicted on the toad. This story being told by me to the gypsy girl, she in no wise doubted its truth, being in fact greatly horrified at it; but was amazed at the child chovihani, or witch, being in two places at once.

c.1300 A.D Scarce British Found Medieval Period Pewter Pilgrim Badge

In the Spanish Association of Witches in the year 1610 (vide Lorent, "Histoire de l'Inquisition") the toad played a great part. One who had taken his degrees in this Order testified that, on admission, a mark like a toad was stamped on his eyelid, and that a real toad was given to him which had the power to make its master invisible, to transport him to distant places, and change him to the form of many kinds of animals.

.:.


The toad is also famous for the mythical stone which was believed to have resided in its head - known as a toadstone and believed to be an antidote for poison. These were often worn as amulets, and fashion into rings or similar to protect the wearer. A toadstone was required to be removed from an old toad while the creature was still alive, and as instructed by the 17th century naturalist Edward Topsell, could be done by setting the toad on a piece of red cloth.



Toadstones were actually the button-like fossilized teeth of Lepidotes, an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous period.

This is rare medieval silver amulet, dating to the 14th - 17th century. The amulet is set with a brown and white coloured stone, examined and identified as a toadstone. The toadstone was a powerful and precious gem from the Medieval and Tudor period. It was thought to protect from poison, snake venom and enchantments by witches.


example of a toadstone from Pitt Rivers Museum

This ring is set with a “toad stone”, employed as magical protection from kidney diseases, stomach complaints and intestinal issues