Potions

“Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

-Shakespeares, Macbeth

Potions are magical liquids that can bewitch, poison, heal and create feelings of love or infatuation with someone. In many towns, the apothecary was too expensive for many folk, so instead, they consulted Witches, Cunning-folk and healers that could make potions.

These potions were not always effective; some were better than what you would receive at the apothecary. In an inquest in Somerset in 1854, a cunning-man gave a man suffering from fits an ointment with sage, wormwood, jack-in-the-hedge and lard, the patient had to rub it on the back of her ear. The local doctor was also consulted and prescribed a mustard plaster. The cunning-mans remedy was the better of the two! Whilst there were a lot of good potions about, there were plenty of evil potions circulating too. In Wales, there were plenty of tales of witches taking dead bodies and using them in their brews.

This myth is referred to in Shakespeare’s Macbeth,
“Round about the cauldron go,
In poisoned entrails throw.”- Act IV, Scene I

Other ingredients the witches of Macbeth used were animal parts:
“Fillet of fenny snake…
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind worm’s sting,
Lizards leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble.” – Act IV, Scene I

Love Potions
Another form of malefic magic was love potions. This seemed to unnerve many people but also entice many people. In Europe, these potions were believed to be brewed and taken by females, but in both male and female were guilty of their charm in Britain! In Durham, 1445, Mariot de Belton and Isabella Brome were accused of telling women that they could give them a potion that would find them a husband. In 1492 Richard Laukiston had also offered to find Widows rich husbands! Almost everyone who practised magic had a potion for finding love; this is a potion found in The Booke of Charms.

Evelyn De Morgan, Love Potion. Painting. 1903.
Wikimedia Commons.