The toad that the poor fisherman and his wife adopted to be their son successfully deceived the rich man, who so rudely turned away his foster-mother after she delivered a marriage proposal on behalf of the toad. The rich man was frightened enough by the toad’s fake heavenly message that he consented to marriage between the toad and one of his three daughters.

On the night of the wedding, the toad told his new bride to cut the skin off his back. After she made a long cut in his back, lo and behold, there stepped forth from the skin a handsome young man.

In the morning, the bridegroom put on his toad skin again, so that nobody would notice any difference. Her two sisters sneered contemptuously at the bride with her repulsive husband, but she took no notice of them.

At noon, all the men of the household went out on horseback with bows and arrows to hunt. The toad accompanied them on foot, unarmed. The party had no success in the hunt and had to return empty-handed.

The bridegroom stripped off his toad skin again and became a man when they had gone. Then he waved his hand in the air. A white-haired man appeared, and the bridegroom bade the man to bring him one hundred deer. When the deer came, the bridegroom drove them homeward, once more wearing his toad skin.

Everyone was most surprised to see all the deer. Then he suddenly stripped off the toad skin and revealed himself as a handsome young man, at which their astonishment knew no bounds. Then he released all the deer and rose up to Heaven, carrying his bride on his back and his parents in his arms.