Medicine Toad's Return
What with travel and a visit from dear friends, this story needed two moon cycles to germinate. Sprouting out of the soil of dreams, archaeology, myth, and ecstatic trance postures following the work of Dr. Felicitas B. Goodman, this tale is decidedly strange. But would you expect anything else of a tale from the World Beyond the Horizon? This is the second part to the story “Medicine Brew,” and I recommend you read that one first if you haven’t already. You may find that the end of the story is cut off in your email, so head on over to Substack to make sure you get the full tale. I hope you enjoy!
Fog hangs like a blanket over the island, blurring the sharpest needles of the Spruce trees and the bare Rowan and Alder branches, where the first leaf buds are just beginning to point the way toward spring. Winter is washing away, collecting in the shadowy crevices that hide from the sun and the rain. The melting snow reveals this winter’s culling - the broken branches and fallen trees. Yet the returning birds, the Redpolls, Siskins, and Starlings, carry with them songs that pierce the blanketing fog.
Little Snake languidly flicks her tongue, emerging glacier-slowly from her den beside The Old Woman’s bed. Raven’s sharp eye is the first to catch sight of her.
Cocking his head, he asks, “Why is your nose black, Little Snake?”
The Old Woman turns toward the back of the cave, wondering if this is another of Raven’s tricks. But sure enough, there is Little Snake, emerging ever so slowly. She winds her way over the cold, dark stone floor, in a stiff back and forth motion. The Old Woman also notices the black mark upon Little Snake’s snout. Rising steadily, she leaves her work to tend to her small friend.
As The Old Woman’s eyes adjust to the dim light at the back of the cave, she sees that Little Snake’s scales are dull and grey, her eyes look milky, and the dark patch on her nose extends farther over the reptile’s head than she had previously perceived, underneath the sloughing skin.
Spirit swooshes into the cave like a wisp of fog taking form. Seeing The Old Woman hunched over in the back of the cave, with Trickster Raven gazing intently on, the white Raven saunters over to take a closer look. The Old Woman cradles Little Snake in her ancient, gnarled hands.
“Naark!” croaks Raven. “Little Snake, you look terrible!”
“Hush,” admonishes The Old Woman. “She just woke up and doesn’t need your sass. Do you see how grey she is? She is molting and cannot see, which is why she is moving so awkwardly.” The Old Woman sighs, “I think she is ill. She appears to have some kind of infection.”
As if on cue, Little Snake sneezes, and The Old Woman’s concern grows when she sees the blackness spread under the molting scales.
“Spirit,” The Old Woman says while caressing Little Snake’s head, “have you heard what became of the Medicine Toad and the brew to heal the world?”
Without a word, Spirit skip-hops toward the cave opening, and flies back out into the fog.
The next morning dawns crisp, clear, and glittering. The temperature dropped in the night, while The Old Woman slept curled around Little Snake, and Raven roosted on his perch. Raven opens his bright, black eyes, and sees The Old Woman still tucked into her carefully woven blankets in the dim recess of the cave. He dives out of the entrance, into the early morning sunlight. The only trace of yesterday’s fog is a wispy cloud hanging low with a rainbow glowing gently above it. Raven flaps his dense, black wings and adjusts his tail to fly straight toward the rainbow.
Back in the cave, The Old Woman eases up onto her feet, still cradling Little Snake in her hand. Wrapping the weary serpent around her neck, The Old Woman goes about her chores, adding wood to the fire, stirring the cauldrons, and sweeping the floor. Standing at the cave entrance, she wonders what the frigid wind would do to Little Snake, even tucked inside her clothes. The Old Woman decides to leave her on a warm stone beside the fire when she descends to the beach to gather more driftwood to add to her dwindling pile.
By the time the two Ravens return, the sun hangs low and rosy in the western sky. The Old Woman has been weaving for hours, with Little Snake resting around her neck. Trickster Raven swoops in first, careening into the cauldrons on the hearth and setting them swinging on their handles.
“Careful!” The Old Woman scolds him, knowing full well he did it on purpose. “If you knock them too hard, they will spill and put out the fire.”
“Rhaak! Rhaak!” Raven laughs. He turns to face the cave entrance. “Kaw! Kaw!” he calls. “Kaw!”
“K’kok! k’kok!” Spirit answers, entering the cave on a gust of chill wind and lands beside the loom.
“Oh, Spirit, you have found the Medicine Toad!” exclaims The Old Woman as she looks at the dark little bundle on the white Raven’s back. She gently lifts the stiff little Toad clinging to a tiny cauldron, and cups the amphibian carefully in her curled and weathered hands, edging closer to the fire to gently warm up. Once she feels movement in her hands, The Old Woman scoops a ladleful of her own herbal brew and walks to the back of the cave. There she soaks Little Snake’s den and gently lowers the Medicine Toad onto the warm, sopping Moss.
Ever curious, the Ravens gather around to watch the Medicine Toad revive.
“Is the Toad still alive?” asks Raven. “If not, can I eat ki?”
“No you may not eat our esteemed guest!” The Old Woman retorts.
The Old Woman’s care revives the Medicine Toad, who begins to stretch out stiff limbs and look around.
“Spirit,” the Toad croaks, “where have you brought me? This is not my muskeg.”
The white Raven leans low before the Medicine Toad and answers, “I brought you to The Old Woman of the World. She needs some of your brew, and you need someone to look after you.”
The Toad turns to look more closely at The Old Woman, who smiles and says, “Tell us your story, Medicine Toad, the one brave enough to travel beyond the little muskeg you call home, out into the great, wide world.”
“Oh, you make me sound so grand, but I am just a Toad,” croaks their guest. “I knew the world was sick, and I just wanted to do my part to help. When the Star Swan flew down to the World Beyond the Horizon, everything looked similar, and yet completely different. We flew over lands with mountains, hills, and valleys, flying ever lower and lower until eventually the Star Swan landed near a village of Five-Fingered Ones, beside an ocean. The land there was flat and cold, but it seemed we were in summer, though there was still ice. That is where I hopped down from the Star Swan’s back, and with my cauldron, slowly made my way over to the village.
“I am so small that the Five-Fingered Ones did not notice me at first, but when one of them did, they all made a circle around me and asked why I was there. They said they had seen the Star Swan land outside the village, like ki does every year, but they had never known the great bird to bring a visitor.
“So, I told them my story and asked them to help me make my brew to heal the world. They said that their ancestors used to make such a brew, but they had not made it in so long that they had forgotten the ingredients. I was so disheartened to have come all that way for no one to be able to help me that I just sat down and began to cry.
“They felt pity for me and wanted to help me, so they talked over the situation. They decided to dig up some of the bones of their ancestors, grind them up, and add them to my brew, and whichever parts didn’t dissolve would be the missing ingredients. It didn’t make perfect sense to me, but they seemed convinced, so I trusted they knew what they were doing.
“I watched as they dug up the bones of some of their most ancient ancestors. They said it was lucky that I came during that time of the year when the ground wasn’t quite so frozen. Then they put some of the smaller bones in a big stone mortar and ground them, singing in some chanting way. One of the villagers explained that they were calling to the ancestors to reveal their wisdom.
“When the bones were ground to powder, the villagers added them to my cauldron. I stirred the brew with the white Jay feather and asked them to taste it. They said that it was good, but it was missing two ingredients. One was the food of the World Beyond the Horizon, and the other were the tears of the Grieving One.
“I had no idea where to find either ingredient, so the villagers sent me first to a forest. The way was long and difficult, especially since I was carrying my cauldron with me. Eventually, I came among the trees, but I didn’t know what kind of food I was looking for. Everything was so big around me and dark. I could hardly find a path, so I became lost.
“What did you do?” asks Raven, who always loves a good story.
“I sat down and cried.”
“Did anyone hear you?” Spirit asks.
“Of course,” replies the Medicine Toad. “Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned on this journey is that if I am doing the work I need to do to help the world, then whenever I need help, someone will be there to guide me, or carry me to the next ingredient.”
“So who helped you this time?” asks Raven
“An Owl.”
“And you weren’t afraid?” inquires The Old Woman, her hands ever busy with the fiber she is spinning.
“Oh, I was definitely afraid.”
Raven croaks out a laugh.
“But the Owl just sat up on a tree branch and asked me why I was crying. So, I told her my story, and when I came to the part where the villagers sent me to find the fruit of the World Beyond the Horizon, the Owl flapped her wings and spoke.
“‘You are not far now from where the Bog Pears grow. Follow me.’
“Owls measure distance quite differently than Toads do. I followed as the Owl flew on silent wings, landing a few trees away and waiting for me to catch up. I had plenty of time to wonder why this bird did not carry me as all the others had. I also wondered if I would like for an Owl to carry me, and the thought did not sit well inside my belly. I figured I preferred her to stay up in the trees, while I carried my cauldron across the Moss and bark and dead leaves of the forest floor.
“I also wondered what the Owl could have possibly meant by ‘Bog Pears,’ but as I had no opportunity to ask, I resigned myself to finding out once I reached them. They were, in fact, the strangest things. Where I come from, berries grow from little plants amidst the Sphagnum Moss in the muskeg, or on bushes, but these Pears were enormous, much bigger than me. I found them down an embankment, where water spilled out of the forest, and into Moss-edged pools.
“As I sat gazing into the first pool I came to, the Owl swooped low, landing terrifyingly close beside me.
“‘The ones with the brown spots are the ripest,’ she said, seeing that I was reaching for a green one, ‘but don’t eat it yourself, or you will never return to the World Above the Horizon.’
“The pool water felt cool and comforting when I hopped onto one of the submerged Bog Pears. The pale, yellow-green flesh was surprisingly soft and I could easily scoop it out. Back on the pool’s edge, I stirred the Bog Pear into my cauldron. I offered a drop to the Owl and we both tasted the medicine brew.
“‘It’s good, but something is missing,’ the Owl observed, and I agreed.
“I explained to the Owl that the villagers on the edge of the cosmic ocean told me I need to gather the tears of the Grieving One.
“‘That is no easy task,’ remarked the Owl. ‘You will have to give up much just in order to reach the place where the Grieving One resides. Then once you are there, well, you will see for yourself.’
“Curiosity got the better of me then and I said to the Owl, ‘Every other bird I have met on my journey has offered to carry me. Why don’t you?’
“The Owl fixed her enormous eyes on me and replied, ‘Long ago, my guidance was sought to help spirits whose bodies had died to pass through this world. Over time, though, spirits have arrived here afraid of the land and afraid of me. I am still here to guide them, but they usually do not wish me to draw near to them. You have not left your body behind in the World Above the Horizon, so I figured you would fear me more than most.’
“‘I do fear that you will eat me,’ I admitted.
“The Owl asked, ‘Why?’
“I replied, ‘I am not ready to die. My medicine brew for the world is not complete yet.’
“The Owl stared at me for what felt like a very long time, saying nothing. At last, she shook her wings and descended to the edge of the bog pool beside me. She offered to carry me to the edge of the Descent, so once again I found myself tucked into the feathers of a large and silent bird, soaring over the trees and hills and valleys of the World Beyond the Horizon.
“We landed on the edge of an enormous sandstone pit. The Owl told me that I would find the Grieving One in the center, and left me to continue my journey.
“‘The key is in the question,’ the Owl called back to me as she took to the sky.
“I realized quite quickly that I would have to leave my cauldron behind if I were to descend the rough walls. With each wall I scrambled down, I found myself disappearing.
“What do you mean by disappearing?” inquires Raven.
“I’m not sure exactly how to explain it,” the Medicine Toad responds thoughtfully, “but I seemed to lose texture and dimension. My body became flatter, then narrower, until I lost even my eyes. I seemed to be made up only of lines suggesting I was once a Toad. I thought I had escaped death when the Owl did not eat me, but here I was, reduced to almost nothing, my cauldron seven walls above me.
“The Grieving One stood bone-white and stone-stiff, with her arms wrapped across her belly. The space was vast and felt cold. She looked so intimidating that I just sat at the edge of her realm, not wanting to approach her. At first, her eyes were closed, but when I finally mustered the courage to step across the stone floor, they flew open and a cold wind whipped through, carrying tiny chunks of ice.
“All of a sudden, I knew what I must do. I scampered across the floor and up her stiff body, onto her shoulder and into her ear. Once inside her head, I found I could climb down onto her tongue, and there I sat. Time seemed to move strangely in that place, sometimes sped up like summer ending, other times slowed like ice melting. As I sat on the Grieving One’s tongue, I recalled what the Owl had said: ‘The key is in the question.’ I thought about whose tongue I was sitting on, and the question seemed so obvious.
“‘What do you grieve?’ I asked aloud. The Grieving One shifted ever so slightly, but did not answer. So I asked the question again. Over and over I asked, ‘What do you grieve? What do you grieve?’
“At last, I felt her stiff face move and I knew she was crying. So I crawled out of her mouth and lifted what was left of my front feet to her face and held her tears. Then she told me.”
“What did she say?” whispers Little Snake, who has been listening all along from where she hangs around The Old Woman’s neck.
“The Grieving One said that she missed the Sun. She missed the Sun and the cycles. She said that she used to live half of the year in the World Above the Horizon, but long ago, she was forced to stay there in the World Beyond the Horizon, as if death were a perpetual state never to be returned from. She said she used to help souls through their transition, but now almost everyone fears her, so they don’t come near.
“I asked if she wanted to come back to the World Above the Horizon with me when I went. She seemed to expand with joy, then she asked if there were anything she could give me in return for such a gift. So, of course, I asked if I could keep her tears.
“Ever so slowly, her fingers spread out on her stiff hands, then her arms loosened from their tight hold across her belly. She reached up and touched my back and an elongated hole opened up. I became the cauldron to carry the Grieving One’s tears.
Medicine Toad goes on, “Warmth spread from by belly, flowing outward until my body seemed to dissolve and I was part of the air around me. Fleshless, almost formless, I climbed down from her shoulder then, and crossed the floor to ascend the sandstone walls the same way I had come. The Grieving One followed me, and as we climbed up each level, we both gained flesh and form. My own muskeg colors returned to my skin, while red ochre spirals and twisting lines swirled over hers.
“Once we summited the seventh and final wall, the Grieving One looked a completely different person, round where once she had been flat, joyful where once she had wept. I sweated her tears out through my skin and collected them carefully into my cauldron. I stirred the brew and tasted it, offering a taste to the Grieving One, or should I say, the Joyful One?
“‘It’s good, but something is missing,’ we both declared.
“She looked down on me with a smile and another tear in her eye.
“‘This is a tear of joy to add to your cauldron,’ she said as she wiped her eye and let the moisture drop into my cauldron. At long last, the medicine brew was perfect.
“I looked up and there was the Star Swan, as if waiting for us. Hauling my cauldron with me, I climbed onto the Star Swan’s back and we flew up, up, up into the night. The Joyful One followed us, growing immense until her head breached the Horizon between the worlds.
“While I rode on the back of the Star Swan, I suddenly realized that though I had made the medicine brew to heal the world, I did not know how to share it with the world. I said as much to the Star Swan, and ki thought over the dilemma for a while. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, nestled in the dark feathers, the Star Swan spoke.
“‘What if you poured your medicine into the milky star river, to rain down on the whole world?’
“At first, I heard the Star Swan speaking, but did not understand the words. But as I woke up, the meaning seemed to grow like a seed inside me, unfurling until it filled my body. Then there I was, carrying my cauldron out onto the Star Swan’s wing. We were inside the milky star river itself, so when I tipped the cauldron over, the medicine flowed all around us.
“I don’t know how long I watched the stars and the brew glowing and flowing and swirling, but eventually I grew cold and returned to the Star Swan’s back to nestle into the feathers. I brought my cauldron with me, but it had lost most of its heat when I poured out the medicine brew. When I looked inside, though, there was one drop left, just enough to keep me from freezing completely. I fell asleep then, and only awoke when Spirit, here, came to take me home.”
The Old Woman holds Little Snake close to the Medicine Toad’s cauldron. Languidly, the ill serpent flicks her tongue out, catching the last drop of the brew.
“Nothing is happening,” Raven comments unhelpfully.
“Healing does not happen all in an instant,” The Old Woman reminds him. “We will need to tend to Little Snake as her body works hard to turn the tides against the illness.” She turns and addresses the Medicine Toad. “You are welcome to stay here with us. I fear another flight without the warmth of the Sun in your cauldron would bode ill for you.”
“Thank you, I would like that for a while,” croaks the Toad. “But when the earth warms up, I would like to return home. Journeys are exciting and important, but I am ready to go back to being just a humble Toad. As we say back in my muskeg, a hop-uppity Toad gets eaten.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks Spirit.
“It means that we mustn’t let ourselves get too exceptional, otherwise it will consume us,” explains The Old Woman as she deftly coils her yarn onto the cop of her spindle.
* My painting of the Medicine Toad was inspired by a Middle Minoan I amphora from the first palace at Phaistos, Crete, dated to the early 2nd mill. B.C.E. I found the image in Marija Gimbutas’ book, The Language of the Goddess (New York: Harper Collins, 1989), 253.
** These stylized toads were inspired by images of the Frog Goddess (or the epiphany of the Goddess of Old Europe as a Frog or Toad) found in Gimbutas’ book, The Language of the Goddess (New York: Harper Collins, 1989), 255.
∞ This image is from Gimbutas, Marija. The Living Goddesses. (Berkely: University of California Press, 1999), 21-2. The description reads, “‘Stiff nudes,’ aspects of the goddess of death and regeneration, belong to graves of the fifth to third millennium B.C… (f) Marble figurine. Cycladic II culture; mid-third millennium B.C. (Chalandriani, Syros Island, Cyclades).”
† This is another little painting inspired by Frog/Toad Goddesses: ex votos or statuettes found again in Gimbutas, Marija, The Language of the Goddess Harper Collins, 1989; pp. 252, 254
†† Gimbutas, Marija, The Living Goddesses (Berkely: University of California Press, 1999), 8. She describes this Goddess figurine thus: “Interest centers on the vulva of this terra-cotta figurine, which is flanked by semicircles and surrounded by spirals and meanders. Lines across her waist and thighs delineate the body section that contains these engraved symbols. The artisan carved V signs over her breasts and a possible script sign below them. Vinča culture; c. 5000 B.C. (Slatino, western Bulgaria).”
˚ Gimbutas, Marija, The Language of the Goddess (Berkely: Harper Collins, 1989), 51.