> Which work by Shakespeare includes a recipe that calls for, "Eye of newt, andtoe of frog?"And the answer: Macbeth. Photo courtesy: Kara Cavalca via The Durango Herald.In Act 4, Scene 1 ofShakespeare's Macbeth, three witches huddle around a cauldron, adding unusualingredients as they chant together. Their spells help Macbeth see visions of thefuture.While it is the shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, Macbeth is jam packed withdrama, suspense, and action. The narrative begins with a prophecy: three witchestell the then-general Macbeth that he will one day become King of Scotland.Power-hungry Macbeth colludes with his wife, and devises a plan to kill the kingand instate himself on the throne. As you might guess, pandemonium ensues. Interestingly, while Macbeth was performed as early as 1606, it wasn't publisheduntil seven years after Shakespeare's death. The production of his First Folio,which was collated by two of the playwright's friends in 1623, publicized awhopping 36 of his plays, 18 of which hadn’t been printed before and might nothave survived otherwise.What's more: the 1606 premier of Macbeth was a disaster. Legend has it theperformance resulted in the death of the actress playing Lady Macbeth (so lastminute that Shakespeare himself had to take on the role), the use of realdaggers instead of stage props for the murder of King Duncan (resulting in theactor’s death), and more. As a result, Macbeth has always been known as a cursedplay, and even a cursed word to utter in a theater. Folklore holds that a covenof witches were unhappy with Shakespeare's use of incantations, and laid a curseon the play. Ever since, Macbeth has been known as The Scottish Play. Fun fact!Much to your surprise (or maybe your horror), Macbeth was actually (veryloosely) based on a real king. The character Macbeth was loosely based on MacBethad mac Findláich, a King of Scotland in the 11th century. Some keydifferences between Shakespeare’s story and reality are that the whileShakespeare portrays Macbeth’s reign as short and bloody, the real king wasgenerally perceived to be quite a successful and fair ruler, reigning from 1040until 1057. Unsurprisingly, the historical record is lacking in witches.