Frogman

I hear that frog men are great at parties.  Check out the second entry to our journey into the world if monsters were real with the frog man monster from Gaspar Schott’s 1662 book, “Physia Curiosa.”

I found this creature in a book called “Physica Curiosa” on the same website that I found the Feuille Monster, the NOAA Photo Library (http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/libr0670.htm).  The book contains illustrations of various monsters and beasts from mythology including a cyclops, triton, and satyr, but this fellow was quite perplexing.

The frog man of Schott’s “Physica Curiosa” is depicted as having a hairless human body with the face of a frog and human hair on its head.  While the drawing does not show the frog man with bulgy eye stalks, I would find it silly not to interpret this being as having frog eye stalks otherwise its not much of a “frog man.”  I don’t know what the text to the right of him means exactly, except that “rana” is the scientific genus of generic pond frogs, so I’m certain that this is a frog monster.

Unlike the sheep monster from the previous entry into “If Monsters Were Real,” this character has no backstory.  He (or she… I can’t tell if they gave this male or female human or frog bits) is simply a human/frog combination that appeared in a book that was a collection of various human hybrids and other mythic beasts.  I’ve never heard of a frog man in any traditional or classic mythos so I’d have to assume that he came from a loacal legend or folkloric tale.

Since it is a humanoid and seems to be able to communicate (hence the hand gesture), I would assume that — while the one depicted in Schott’s illustration — frog men (and women) would be a part of society or at least have their own.

Originally posted 14 July 2010.