Back to the Garden

The crossword yesterday was full of ingredients from the witches’ brew in the opening of Macbeth. I couldn’t remember off the top of my head so I pulled my Shakespeare off the shelf: “Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder’s fork and blind worm’s sting, lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing.” I was in my teens when I first read this. It made me shudder to think those three weird women were adding animals' body parts to a steaming cauldron. Now I recognize most of those ingredients as very old names for herbs. Eye of newt is another name for mustard seed. Toe of frog is a buttercup. Holly leaves used to be called bat’s wool, and ivy was lizard’s leg. Adder’s fork was a type of fern. I don’t know about blind worms or howlets, but they were probably plants, too. Maybe the witches were just brewing herbal tea.