A peculiar rumor had spread among the riverbank's residents. Whispers of a frog, dressed in dark robes and wielding an oar like a scythe, had begun to circulate. They called him the Frogrim Reaper. Mole, Ratty, and Badger scoffed at the tales, dismissing them as mere woodland legends.

But one evening, as Toad regaled them with his latest reckless escapade, a shadowy figure emerged from the reeds. It was the Frogrim Reaper, his baleful eyes fixed on Toad. As the friends watched in astonishment, Toad's boisterous laughter turned into a cough, and then a wheeze. The Frogrim Reaper patiently waited by, oar in hand, a silent reminder that even in the idyllic world of the Willows, time and mortality spared no one.