SOURCE: "The Devil of the Marsh" (Diogenes of London, 1893) by H. B. Marriott-Watson

DESCRIPTION: "I leapt forward: and once again the fog thinned, and I beheld her, woman or devil, standing upon the verge, and peering with smiling eyes into the foul and sickly bog." ("The Devil of the Marsh" by H. B. Marriott-Watson)

NOTES: An unnamed woman lures men to the marsh where she turns them into her frog-like slaves. The gal is beautiful, lively and alluring but her demeanour once the victims are in the marsh is evil and mocking.

HISTORY: The idea of an evil woman who transforms men into frogs would appear again in Clark Ashton Smith's "Mother of Toads". The idea pre-dates Marriott-Watson in the traditional song "Alison Gross", a witch who turns a man into a worm or dragon. That song may also have inspired Smith.