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| Common Frog |
"TAKE three small-necked stone jars : place in each the liver of a frog stuck full of new pins, and the heart of a toad stuck full of thorns from the holy thorn bush. Cork and seal each jar. Bury in three different churchyard paths seven inches from the surface and seven feet from the porch. While in the act of burying each jar repeat the Lord's prayer backwards.
As the hearts and livers decay so will the witch's power vanish. After performing this ceremony no witch can have any power over the operator."
Hewett 1900
[At Pitt Rivers museum in Cambridge there is a toad and a bulls heart from 19th century Devon stuck with pins and nails... There are examples available on the internet, including here, but the owners of the images somehow think that there job is to restrict the use of this folk material, rather than facilitating free communal use of our past... I wish I wasn't trying to keep this site copyright legal - there is lots of interesting stuff held by various public institutions, but they all restrict the use of the information they make available. Oh well.]
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