A croak and dagger affair

Tony Deyal, Contributor

When bad luck strikes with a vengeance, Trinidadians and some other islanders say, Crapaud smoke your pipe.

A crapaud is a frog, and somewhere along the language, a frog is a toad. For instance, what happens if a frog parks his car next to a hydrant? It gets toad away.

While the image of a pipe-smoking frog, crapaud or toad is ludicrous, the belief that it is a creature of evil, a harbinger of ill tidings or a poisonous reptile is almost universal in the English-speaking Caribbean.

In the French-speaking Caribbean, the crapaud might be all that, but it is also a tasty delicacy, smoked or sauteed.

When I was small and heard that there were people for whom the crapaud was mountain chicken, I could not imagine anyone who would eat a frog.

When a pet dog died attempting this feat, I was absolutely certain that the tales of people eating frogs were grossly exaggerated. We more tended to believe that frogs ate people as they ate snakes, with glee and venom.

According to an entry in Weird News Stories, it used to be a very commonly held misconception that toads secrete a deadly venom.

The husband of an Italian woman was dying of dropsy. However, she felt that he was taking far too long for her liking. She accordingly procured a toad and put it into his wine so that he might drink the liquid and die.

Instead, and much to her amazement, he completely recovered overnight. What she did not know, and what the book says everyone knows, is that toad venom is the single best cure for dropsy.

Another woman was waiting for natural causes to take over. A very cute little girl said to her grandfather, "Grandpa, can I sit on your lap?" He told her nicely and affectionately that she could.

As she sat on her grandfather's lap, the child asked very sweetly, "Grandpa, can you make a sound like a frog?" Anxious to please the little girl, he said, "A sound like a frog? Well, sure Grandpa can make a sound like a frog."

The little girl then insisted, "Please, Grandpa, please make a sound like a frog."

Perplexed, her grandfather, wishing to understand the reasoning that prompted her to ask him to do something so unusual, asked, "Sweetheart, why do you want me to make a sound like a frog?"

The little girl replied, "Because Grandma said that when you croak, we're going to Florida!"

Frogs have always been associated with death and black magic.

Obeah or black magic

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, frogs feature prominently in the witches brew. Recently, at a Magistrates Court in Trinidad, just before the trial of a prominent ex-Minister of Government was due to be held, a frog was found in the environs of the courtroom with its mouth sewn tightly together and its body doused with what seemed to be acid.

Most people automatically believed that it was obeah or black magic designed to keep someone from spilling the beans. It was like wishing that person would have a frog in the throat, so to speak.

In spite of what was done to it, the frog continued to hop around the courthouse. What was interesting, is that a lawyer said that such obvious black magic phenomena happened all the time, particularly before big trials.

The ancient view of the frog as evil, contrasts with this short essay on frogs written by a young immigrant from Norway and reported by the Chicago Board of Education. "What a wonderful bird the frog are. When he stand, he sit almost. When he hop, he fly almost. He ain't got no sense hardly. He ain't got no tail hardly, either, when he sit on what he ain't got almost."

This is more in tune with the childhood story of the Frog Prince. But times have changed and the stories are different.

For instance, A frog telephones the Psychic Hotline and is told, "You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you." The frog says, "This is great! Will I meet her at a party, or what?" "No," says the psychic. "Next school term, in her biology class."

A frog was walking along one day when he met a fairy who said, "For forty dollars, I can turn you into a Prince."

Overjoyed, he gave her fifty dollars and immediately changed into a handsome, dashing Prince.

Thinking that it would be much easier to get a date to the ball in his new look, the Prince asked the fairy for the ten dollars left over so he could rent a snazzy car to go to the ball.

The fairy returned his money and was about to leave when the Prince shrunk down in his boots and was once again a frog.

Shocked and in despair, the frog asked the fairy, "What happened?" "Well," she replied. "You gave me fifty bucks and then asked for your change back."

Bad enough

If you think that story is bad, try this one. A man walked into a bar and told the bartender he had no money, but in exchange for a beer he would show him something he would never forget.

The bartender shook his head in disbelief but went ahead and gave the man a beer. The man took a rat out of one pocket and a frog out of another. The rat scurried over to the bar's piano and played a tune. The frog then sang out the song in perfect harmony with the rat's piano playing.

A few minutes later another man, who had witnessed the performance, walked over and offered the customer a hundred dollars for the frog.

The owner of the frog instantly accepted and gave the other man the frog. "Are you crazy?" the bartender asked. "That frog could be worth a fortune to you." "No problem," the customer said. "The rat is a ventriloquist."

Tony Deyal was last seen in a French Restaurant asking a waiter, "Have you got frogs legs?" "No," replied the waiter, "I always walk this way."

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