CHAPTER VII. 

 "THE LOATHED PADDOCK." 



11 Would' st thou think that toads or snakes or efts 

 Could e'er be beautiful?" Shelley. 



"INASMUCH," says De Gubernatis, "as the toad is a form 

 proper to the demon, it is feared and hunted ; inasmuch 

 as, on the contrary, it is considered as a diabolical form 

 imposed upon a divine or princely being, it is respected 

 and venerated as a sacred animal." In poetry, the toad 

 has only one, the "loathed" aspect; although in popular 

 estimation in all countries it has both a sinister and a 

 benign. 



It is a lucky omen if one crosses the path of a wedding 

 party bound for the church. Did not St. Patrick all 

 pictures to the contrary notwithstanding spare them when 

 he drummed "the vermin" out of Ireland? Just as in 

 Cornwall a man may not shoot a raven lest he should kill 

 King Arthur unawares, so in Tuscany, you may not hurt a 

 toad lest you should do a mischief to some young princess 

 or heroine who has been cruelly transformed into that shape, 

 and who is only waiting for the beautiful prince to come, 

 when the maiden will resume her charms and "live happily 

 ever afterwards." In the folk-tale of some countries, the 

 Beast who marries Beauty is a toad, and many stories 

 substitute this creature for the frog in such stories as where, 

 benign and amiable, it fetches rings up for sultans' sons 



