As a recompense for having saved its life, the toad soon afterwards appears to him in the shape of a very beautiful woman, and promises to assist him all the days of his life—
"Oh picciotti furtunatu!
Eu ti prutiggirò d'ora nn' avanti,
Jeu su' dda buffa, chi tu, gratu e umanu
Sarvasti antura da l'impiu viddanu."
In Piedmont, I have heard a popular story[518] related in which the toad is, on the other hand, the diabolical form assumed by a handsome youth; in Aldrovandi, several things are narrated of women who gave birth to toads.[519]
From the double and contradictory aspect in which the toad was regarded, popular medicine, although believing that the humour which the toad, when provoked, ejects from behind, is fatal, and that the toad not only poisoned men, but even all the plants over which it passed, still recommends the wearing of dried toads under the armpits as amulets against plague and poison. The same alexipharmic virtue was also ascribed to the stone called and believed to be toad's-stone (or bufonite), which was said to change colour when its wearer was poisoned. The bufonite was supposed to be taken out of a toad's head, but science has demonstrated that the bufonite, sold by quacks is made of the tooth of a fossil fish.[520] Out of the toad, the dark animal of the night, the gloom or winter, the solar pearl comes; thus popular German stories regard the Schild-kröte (or toad with the shield) as sacred, on account of the pearl supposed to be contained in its head. In Hungary it is said that the toad swallows the dew in the dry season; it is believed, moreover, that the frog, like the serpent, vomits forth, in spring, a precious stone called the stone of the serpent or the stone of the frog. According to what Count Geza Kuun writes to me, in the testament of a citizen of Kaisa three golden rings are mentioned, one of which contained a "frog's stone."
I have observed above that the toad's place is sometimes taken in popular tales by the horned lizard; the lizard also represents the demoniacal shape, the shape of a witch. On this subject there was an interesting discussion by Karl Simrock upon the word Eidechse (the lizard in German), derived from the ancient form Hagedisse which is the same as Hexe or witch. It is as a witch that the lizard is killed, in the Greek myth, by Apollines, whence its name of sauroktanos.[521] But, inasmuch as the lizards appear in spring and announce the fine season, they are considered (according to Porphyrios) sacred to the sun, and therefore of good augury. A Bolognese proverb says, "Sant' Agnes, la luserta cor pr' al paes," to indicate that the season is beginning to improve, inasmuch as with the appearance of the lizards on the Day of St Agnes, which is in the beginning of March, spring begins to make itself felt. In Sicily it is believed that the little lizards called San Giuvanni must not be killed, because they are in the presence of the Lord in heaven, and light the little lamp to the Lord (as we have already seen the firefly give light to the grain). And when they are killed, in order that they may not curse one, one must say to the tail which is shaking, that it was not the real killer, but the dog of St Matthew who committed the crime,
"Nun fu' ieu, nun fu' ieu:
Fu lu cani di San Matteu."
They are believed to be powerful intercessors before the Lord, for which reason Sicilian children warm them in their bosoms, and feed them on crumbs of bread soaked in water.
But an especially sacred character is ascribed to the lacerta viridis (It. ramarro; Sicilian, vanuzzu, a diminutive of Giovanni) and to the amphisbhœna, of which the ancients believed that it had two heads (like the Hindoo ahîraṇis), its tail being taken for one. The amphisbhœna is still held sacred and revered in India.[522] The green lizard of popular superstition is partly solar and partly lunar; the firefly and the quail, as summer animals, are sacred to the sun; as watchers by night, to the moon. Thus the green lizard, as a summer animal which hunts away the serpent of winter, appears particularly in relation with the sun; but inasmuch as there is also the serpent of night, the green lizard or green ramarro takes the place of the crab-moon, that is, it wakens the young solar hero who sleeps in the night, and wakens the sleeping man lest the serpent should bite him. The moon of winter wakens the sun of spring, the moon of night wakens the sun of day; the moon-lizard, like the moon crab, hunts the serpent or black monster away. In Piedmont, Tuscany, and Sicily, the green lizard is believed to be the friend of mankind; indeed, it is called guarda omu in Sicily, where it is believed to cure from incantations, perhaps on account of the yellow cross which the people think they can see upon its head. At Santo Stefano of Calcinaia it is said that the green lizard hisses in the ears of Christians like a Christian when the serpent approaches a man; they even relate several cases of shepherds or peasants who, being asleep, were saved by the green lizard passing over them (Aldrovandi speaks of a similar superstition). It is, moreover, believed that the green lizard, if caught and put in a vase full of oil, will produce the oil of a ramarro, which is said to be good against wounds and poisons. In the Contes Merveilleux de Porchat, a fairy protects the poor Laric and brings fortune to him in the shape of a grateful couleuvre, which he, in winter, found frozen and warmed in his bosom. The couleuvre makes radiant coins fall to Laric from the beaks of certain partridges, enables him to find whatever he is in need of, and puts a golden chain round the neck of his wife. Thus the myths of the golden (or green) fish, the golden (or green) frog and the golden (or green) lizard, correspond to each other in the beautiful myth of the good moon-fairy, who protects the solar hero or heroine in the nights both of the day and the year.