What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog’?
This is the well-known incantation of the Three Witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, 1605:
All:
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.Second Witch:
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
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,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
We now see the three witches’ brew as a hocus-pocus spell, much imitated by spoof witches in comedies and hardly to be taken seriously. In Shakespeare’s day the effect would have been rather different and he could have expected a significant proportion of the audience to have taken the magic potion storyline literally.
See other - phrases and sayings from Shakespeare.