"The Frog" is a short story by Henry Kuttner, originally published in the February 1939 issue of the magazine Strange Stories.
This story introduces Monk's Hollow, a location featured in Kuttner's Cthulhu Mythos story "The Hunt". Both stories are included in the anthology The Book of Iod: Ten Tales of the Mythos.
Synopsis[]
Norman Hartley, an artist from New York City, rents a house in the small town of Monk's Hollow to work on some paintings. On the garden there is a large stone inscribed with symbols, which Hartley regards as ugly. The caretaker, Dobson, tells him that centuries ago a witch named Persis Winthorp was buried there.
Although she looked human at first, Winthorp was the daughter of a humanoid frog-like monster from the local swamp. When the villagers tried to drown her, they found that she wouldn't die, so they buried her alive and placed the magical stone over the spot, so she would remain there. It is believed that she's still alive, but incapable of escaping, and that at this point she's no longer human, but has transformed into a batrachian creature like her father.
Dismissing Dobson's story as superstition, Hartley pays two passing truck drivers to remove the stone. That night, Winthorp digs her way out of her grave, breaks into Hartley's house and kills Dobson. Hartley hears the sounds of someone breaking in and grabs a knife from the kitchen, but flees in terror when he sees the creature. He runs a great distance through the countryside with the monster at his pursuit, and engages in a brief fight with it, until a farmer named Byram Liggett fires a musket and saves him. Winthorp sneaks into another farm and kills Anam Pickering and his sister Martha.
On the next day, the townspeople and Hartley take part in a hunt for the monster, organized by Liggett. Hartley continues to doubt that the frog-creature is Winthorp, believing it to be some kind of hybrid animal instead. That night, Winthorp attacks a gasoline station, but the townspeople arrive too late to capture her. Two days later, she breaks into Liggett's house, where Hartley is staying. Hartley manages to escape and shoot Winthorp, causing her to bleed a black ichor, but she doesn't stop the pursuit. The frog-woman pursues Hartley into the swamp, followed by neighbors who heard the first shot and follow them by automobile. The neighbors and Hartley shoot Winthorp, who falls and sinks into the quicksand while cursing them.
Characters[]
- Norman Hartley, a painter from New York. He is described as having an obsession with aesthetics, finding the presence of a large stone in the middle of the garden to be intolerable.
- Dobson, an elderly caretaker with a wooden leg, who tries to prevent Hartley from removing the stone.
- Persis Winthorp, an immortal witch who, over the course of several decades, transforms into a croaking beast, half-frog half-human, much like her father. She is phenomenally strong, with sharp claws, and eats the flesh of those she kills.
- Byram Liggett, a farmer who rescues Hartley and heads the party to hunt for Winthorp.
- Anam and Martha Pickering, a farmer and his sister, both brutally killed by Winthorp.
Behind the Mythos[]
Although she isn't identified as such, Persis Winthorp displays many similarities with the Deep One hybrids from H. P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Like them, she was born from a batrachian creature, might possibly have gills (as she can't be killed by drowning), is biologically immortal but not invulnerable, and eventually transforms over the years into a croaking frog-like humanoid that looks much like her father.
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