St. Ulphia

Saint Ulphia on the Rocks

Patron Saint of Frogs

Also called Wulfe Ulphe, Olfe, Wolfia, and Wulfia . Her name means beautiful woman. Saint Ulphia lived as a recluse near Amiens, France in the 8th century.

Nothing is known of her early childhood or where she came from. As a young girl she traveled to the rocky banks of the Noye, where she began her life as a hermit.

It is said that on her way, somewhere near Auxerre, she encountered a herd of frogs being driven form the banks of the Yonne River by men intent on exterminating them. The frogs had been accused of being processed by a local priest because their croaking prevented him from proper prayer. He said, they were the reason the rains were heavy and fields still wet. Ulphia told the frogs that she would protect them and they hid under her robes and clung to her legs as she walked. Upon reaching the rocks of Noye, she placed the frogs in their new home and promised to shelter them.

Local lore says St. Ulphia meditated and prayed through the nights, gazing at the moon and listening to the frogs singing. In time she claimed to understand their song.

The Frogs’ Ballade, also known as the Tale of St. Ulphia may have once been written in the back leaves of Saint Ulphia’s personal “Book of Hours”. This has been a matter of debate. The pages are missing from the book and the earliest copy of the story was written ninety-one years after her passing.

In 841, the story was declared heretical and all copies were ordered destroyed. While there were many local oral versions, only one pre-nineteen century written copy survived. It was discovered in the Einsiedeln Abbey, Einsiedeln in the Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland and is dated to 814 AD. Some scholars believe that Saint Meinrad, a hermit, and founder of the monastery brought it with him. This claim is fiercely denied by the Abbey, as it would have been, by then, a heretical text and therefore could not have been in his possession. It is more likely that it was part of a nineteen century bulk purchase of old manuscripts from a French dealer. The Catholic Church has never sanctioned an interpretation and while naming Saint Ulphia the Patron Saint of Amphbians denies the entire context of the Tale of St. Ulphia. declaring it a heretical mix of old wife’s tales and pure fiction.

The tale is most commonly told in the first person of the dominant bull frog. The frog begins the story by telling of a time, before humans were created on the sixth day, but after all the other creatures were forms, when God decided to visit the world. He states, “Until the fall of man, animals had the ability to speak, and before the tower of Babylon, all of the earth, including all the animals spoke in the same voice. At noon on the sixth day, we began the preparations for the visit. The giraffes were put in charge of the arrangements. Because their necks reach into heaven, they would be best at viewing the plan as God would see it.

They created a throne made of peacocks and flamingos with a great eagle at the top. White swans served as the cushion. The lions, who the giraffes were anxious to please, were placed flanking the throne. The cows and beasts of burden formed a great mountain on which the throne sat. The most beautiful of the fish leaped from waters behind the throne into the air as high as clouds. The butterflies and colorful insects formed the carpet that stretched a distance equal to the distance from Paris to Rome and birds formed a great canopy over the processional road. The flying fowl formed themselves into a great tapestry depicting the creation’s first six days, and the creatures of the carpet formed every geometric design in the universe. The snakes, having not yet fallen out of favor, formed the edging of the carpet. Elephants lines the path with gazelles, deer, and the myriad of antlered animals standing on their backs, and then still smaller mammals on theirs and even smaller on theirs, continuing is such a manner until each formed a pyramidal tower that scraped the sky itself. Every beautiful creature was included and the giraffes themselves formed the gateway crossing their long necks.

Then we, the frogs humbly asked. “Where should we be placed?” All the creatures glared at us.

The Giraffes told us, “You, you are ugly, you must hide, for if God sees you He will be most disturbed, He will wipe you form the earth, for surely you were a mistake.” So, we hid under the great Nile Crocodiles.

Each of the animals speculated in what form God would come. We knew that we would not be granted a true vision of Him, as that would transform us into beings with understanding souls, like the angels. Such is not the role that we, the lowly were made for. The birds were sure that he would come in the form of a peacock. This made for so much concern that the giraffes removed them from the throne and put them at the entryway surrounding their legs. They feared that God might become jealous if His own spender was outshone by one of the proud birds.

Then God came. He came in the form of a man. He came so that we would know the form which was to dominate us. The form most pleasing to Him.

While we were warned to stay hidden, we wanted only to see him, even if that meant that we would be eradicated. We slowly crept out from under the crocodiles and just as he was passing by, we saw him. He stopped and looked down. Every creature gaped. He spat on us and walked on. Low tones of mocking laughter echoed in the crowd. But we, the frogs were honored. The spittle of God, on our very flesh, we rubbed it into our eyes, into our mouths and into our ears. As we did, we took joy in this gift, and our eyes could see, our ears could hear and our mouths could taste God. We could see, hear and taste God, not in the form of a man, but as He is, in all His splendor. We, and only we, could see him looking at us. Smiling knowingly at us and speaking to us. He said only to us, “You, my humblest of creatures, through you, not through the great kings, clergy, or doctors shall men see me as I am. Great books will reveal me in the images of a man, but you have the power to reveal me through the secret of my spit.

We, nodded in obedience and we have kept the secret. We the frogs, know where God has hidden His spit. We know the secret well of revelations. But our time is passing. We have but a short time left upon the earth, it is the time when we must pass on our knowledge.” This is where the tale ends. The location is never revealed in any of the versions.

Historical records show that with the growing number of followers, the frogs’ population and their singing intensified to alarming levels. The Bishop Raimbertus, from the Diocese of Amiens was informed of unnatural activities in the region and the unholy sounds. The location was placed under interdict as a result of their loud croaking.

Then, Saint Ulphia spoke to the frogs, assuring them that she understood and that they now must be still, they must only whisper and not evangelize. The bull of interdict was lifted, allowing Saint Ulphia and her followers to live in the area without threat of excommunication for doing so. Thus, in her iconography, she is depicted as a young nun seated in prayer on a rock with a frog in the pool near her.

When the increasing numbers of disciples began to build hermitages around her, Ulphia organized them into a community, forming and directing a community known as the Religious Women at Amiens. She then resumed her eremetical life alone.

While the tale is no longer accepted, there is enough historical and church evidence that the Frogs of Noye played a pivotal role in the saint’s life, that she was declared by the Roman Catholic Church to be the official Patron Saint of Amphibians.

A scientific experiment, noted on a19th century hagiographer records that the frogs in the area around the oratory of Saint Ulphia are, indeed, very quiet. However, if these frogs were taken elsewhere, they became boisterous once again.

A statue of Ulphia stands in the portal of Amiens Cathedral and a painting of Ulphia with Saint Domitius by the nineteenth century painter, Jean de Franqueville, hangs inside the cathedral.

She died January 31, 750, her feast day.