Happy Halloween, everyone! Don’t mind the pumpkins sitting around the bar – and if they make faces, well, just tell them to go sit in the corner. If you want to sample the local flavor, I’d suggest any of our wide variety of Oktoberfest brands – it is the last good day for them, after all.

But who’s that lurking in the shadows? Why, that’s a bard I think – no, wait, it’s the Bard. That’s right, folks, this week the bar’s pulled in William Shakespeare himself to usher in the tricks and treats with, through what is, perhaps, one of the most famously popular poems for Halloween delight: “Song of the Witches”.

The poem is actually a series of lines from the three witches of Shakespeare’s legendary “Macbeth,” but its chorus, as it were, has engrained itself deep into the psyche of western culture…

Watch what you drink.

~Chris Galford

First Witch
Thrice the brinded Cat hath mew’d.

Second Witch
Thrice and once the Hedge-Pig whined.

Third Witch
Harpier cries: ‘Tis time, ’tis time.

First Witch
Round about the Cauldron go;
In the poison’d Entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and Nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d Venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

All
Double, double toile 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 Frogge,
Wool of Bat, and Tongue of Dogge,
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.

All
Double, double toyle and trouble,
Fire burn and Cauldron bubble.

Third Witch
Scale of Dragon, Tooth of Wolf,
Witches’ Mummy, Maw and Gulf
Of the ravin’d salt Sea shark,
Root of Hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of Blaspheming Jew,
Gall of Goat, and Slips of Yew
Silver’d in the Moon’s Eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of Birth-strangled Babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a Drab,
Make the Gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a Tiger’s Chaudron,
For the Ingredients of our Cauldron.

All
Double, double toyle and trouble’
Fire burn and Cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Cool it with a Baboon’s blood,
Then the Charm is firm and good.

~William Shakespeare