Charles Godfrey Leland

“ And it is well known that in the Church of Saint Michael in Schwatz, on the evening before the great festivals, but when no one is present, an immense toad comes crawling before the altar, where it kneels and prays, weeping bitterly. The general belief is that toads are for the most part people who made vows to go on pilgrimages, and died with the vows unfulfilled. So the poor creatures go hopping about astray, bewildered and perplexed, striving to find their way to shrines which have perchance long since ceased to exist. ”

“ It is bad to have one's looks against one. The personal appearance of the toad is such as to have giver it a bad place in the mythology of all races. The Algonkin Indians--who, like Napoleon and Slawkenbergius, were great admirers of men with fine bold noses--after having studied the plane physiognomy of the toad, decided that it indicated all the vices, and made of the creature the mother of all the witches. ”

“ 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. ”