Poppet

Poppet
General Information
Type	Witch's tool
Use	Creating a magical connection with the victim designated by a witch to suffer supernatural effects.

“	Do you remember when I gave you a little doll that very nearly squeezed the life out of you?	”
	— Mary Sibley to Anne Hale[src]

A poppet is a human figurine used by witches to represent their victims and establish a magical connection with them.

Description

“	Learn to take in the life force in all the creatures around us, turning the power within it, directing it as you will, into another person... Or into say, a doll.	”
	— Mary Sibley[src]

A poppet is a figurine made to represent the distant recipient of magical working. Often these would incorporate such things as hair or nail clipping to strenghten the connection with the victim. Poppets may be made of different materials like wax, cloth, ceramic. To create a poppet, a doll must first be crafted then baptized in the name of the target with specific rituals. Thus the poppet should be placed in the vicinity of the target of the spell. For example, it can be hidden in their bedroom. Mary Sibley sewed a doll filled with ingredients such as blood from a mouse, crushed cockroaches, and poisonous weeds to cast an hex on Anne Hale. Noteworthy is John Hale's collection of small figurines similar to tribal fetishes, obtained during his travels, and placed on a shelf in the living room of his house.

For damage

The main purpose of dolls in witchcraft is to harm the person their represent. To do this, a witch must obtain some victim's personal items, whether they are a strand of hair, a jewel or a piece of clothing. The poppet is then filled with deadly items such as poisonous herbs and cockroaches, and bathed with the blood of a sacrificed animal. Once a bond between a doll and a victim has been created, the witch will be able to do any harm to the hated person by acting directly on the poppet.

For protection

Main article: Dollhouse

The Dark Lord crafted an enhanced variation of this by creating a whole dollhouse with fetishes representing his inner circle – Mary Sibley, The Sentinel, Cotton Mather. Anne Hale, and Sebastian Von Marburg – thus constituting a magical protection from the serious damage caused by the Great Terror.

As an offering

Some fetishes made with parts of human bones, wood, clothes, and foliage are often offered to the Devil and hanged on tree branches in the woods. Some of them may be spells to the detriment of some adversary. Many of these poppets spotted by Isaac Walton and Captain John Alden were made of unborn children skeletons, although it is unclear whether they have been stolen from some graves, or borne by the witches themselves.

Throughout Salem

Fetishes offered to the Devil

Isaac Walton and Captain John Alden stumbled upon some skeletons of unborn children hanging from a Witch Tree near the place they were about to witness a Sabbath and convince Captain Alden of the real threat of witches. Isaac explained that they were gifts to the Devil himself. In the following afternoon, while they were conversing at the Salem Cemetery about love and death, Mary Sibley stole a string of hair from Anne Hale while patting her shoulder.

Some urchins were playing with rusty poppets made with some sticks and pieces of cloth. Drawing directly from the horrors caused by the witch-panic, the children hanged the poppets on a gallows built with chopsticks. At nightfall, Isaac Walton led Reverend Cotton Mather into the woods, headed to the spot where Isaac and John Alden had witnessed a witches' Sabbath just a few nights before. As they examined a Witch Tree, some anthropomorphic fetishes made of twigs were hanging from tree branches.

Mary Sibley included the hair she stole from Anne Hale into a doll she crafted to resemble her. She filled the poppet with cotton, a handful of dried herbs, seeds and crushed cockroaches. Mary then offered a mouse in sacrifice by crushing its body with her hand over the doll. After the poppet was sewn back together, it made its way in Anne's bedroom.

The doll squeezing the life out of Anne

Anne experienced discomfort from the doll, including a distorted reflection in the mirror. The curse intensified to the point that, after Mary enhanced her spell by sacrificing another mouse, she almost squeezed the life out of Anne Hale, who passed out. As Anne's lungs filled with blood and her respiratory tract obstructed, the cursed doll began to move by itself. Turning its head towards Anne as she fell to the ground in agony for suffocation. Only the pleas of John Hale, and his total submission to Mary's will pushed the woman to lift the spell.

In an attempt to explain to Anne the fascination and the power of witchcraft, Mary Sibley confessed she was behind the doll that almost took her life.

When Treasurer Wendell Hathorne visited Anne Hale, he noticed some fetishes on a shelf in the living room. Anne explained that her father collected those exotic examples of craftsmanship during his many travels to the Old Continent. The figurines were later studied by the Countess Von Marburg, who threatened Anne to handle her the boy to complete the Consecration.

As the Great Terror drew nearer, the Dark Lord gathered his inner circle to the library of the House of the Seven Gables. He revealed to them the existence of a dollhouse, complete with dolls resembling them. As long as the figurines were inside the dollhouse, they will protect their counterparts from the indescribable terror caused by Hell on Earth.

Gallery

Videos

SCENES FROM SALEM Episode 3 -- Anne and the Doll