>Round about the cauldron go:  
In the poisoned entrails throw.  
Toad, that under cold stone  
Days and nights has thirty-one  
Sweated venom sleeping got,  
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

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>By the pricking of my thumbs,  
Something wicked this way comes.

\-William Shakespeare, Song of the Witches (Macbeth)

  
There's a particular type of witch I think Goody might be inspired by. Toads were seen as conduits of black magic and used in rituals to give witches the power to harm others (maleficium) and control animals and nature. Later on, people framed this (during witch trials) as making pacts with the Devil. These women were known as toad-witches or toadswomen, and their magic had such a feared reputation that people believed its power could eventually drive the witch herself mad.

Toads were also thought to serve as witches' familiars. One of the Weird Sisters in Shakespeare's Macbeth is accompanied by a toad familiar named Paddock.



I'm thinking the Hyde might be the product of magic and alchemy, originally created to be a witch's familiar. And the first witch to have one, of course, was Goody.

Historically (see below), toad familiars were believed to be the Devil in disguise, serving witches and carrying out whatever tasks they were given, including acts of maleficium against others (in exchange for being fed with the witch's blood).

So now I'm wondering what would happen if Wednesday gave her blood to Tyler, and Tyler gave his to her.

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The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Witch trial of Elizabeth Francis, tried at Chelmsford in 1556):

>...he first demanded of her a drop of her blood. And she gave it to him whenever he did anything for her, by pricking her hand or face and putting the blood to his mouth, which he would suck, and then immediately lie down again in his pot, where she kept him. Another time she rewarded him as before, with a chicken and a drop of her blood \[...\] She also said that when she wanted him to do anything for her, she would say her Pater Noster in Latin.

>This Mother Waterhouse confessed that she first turned this cat \[Sathan\] into a toad \[...\] she prayed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that it would turn into a toad, and immediately it was turned into a toad, and so she kept it in the pot without the wool.  
  
Windsor case: In 1579 at Windsor, one Mother Dutton, living in Clewer parish, was said to keep a spirit or familiar in the likeness of a toad.

Image 3: An old British and Scottish folktale carved in wood of a witch feeding her toad familiars with her blood

Image 4: Crapaud se rendant au sabbat, 1863 (A toad visiting the sabbath from "Dictionnaire Infernal" by Jacques Collin de Plancy)

Image 5: Crapauds dansant au sabbat, 1863 (Toads dancing at the sabbath from "Dictionnaire Infernal" by Jacques Collin de Plancy)

\---

Related post:

[Witches' Sabbath and blood pacts with the devil](https://www.reddit.com/r/weyler/comments/1sx55ja/i_saw_this_on_twitter_x_a_few_days_ago_and_i_have/)

[Wednesday's and Tyler's special blood](https://www.reddit.com/r/weyler/comments/1svcmin/s1_wednesdays_special_blood_s2_tylers_special/)

[Morticia reading Macbeth](https://www.reddit.com/r/weyler/comments/1syv6kg/gomez_read_hamlet_so_he_could_relate_to_his_wife/)

Toad Witches and Sabbath + Giant Mutated Frog and Bewitched Frog cartoons by Charles Addams