tapped into something there! When I was doing my reading, it hadn't really been mentioned until sometime in the seventeenth century that in Latin the word "Apple" was the same word for "Tree". which presumably was a reference to what you are talking about, but it was never made clear and no one could explain why this was so. That was interesting! I had found this phrase that the witches were going to unleash this Mallum, this plague upon the people, and that idea occurred to me, what if that was the code to the apple being opened, what would that be? Yes, we played with the idea, and if you look closely, you can see engravings on the show that could be referenced to the "Tree", and that also indicates "the serpent" and the figure we know as the Devil, which others would view in a different way, like "life bringer" or knowledge bringer". And there's a snake element on the show with Anne Hale, well, Countess Marburgh in some ways, and yes, there is a whole mythological nexus there. At the same time, Brannon and I wanted to view the witches as sort of a modern day "Sleeper Cell". We wanted them to be a part of a what is really a supernatural "Weapon Of Mass Destruction". And early on, we had the idea to release a version of small pox which mostly wiped out the Native Americans and spared the colonists at the time who were already exposed. We thought, "What if the witches were to reverse-engineer that and create a pox that would target the Puritans?" And the idea became what would the weapon look like? And then, of course that became the Mallum.
Rob: Whoa! So, basically it states that witches were here longer than anyone?
Adam: Yeah! You'll see as you watch this Season that you really get into the mythology of it especially in Episode Seven, which really gives an interesting backstory on Lucy's character. With her, I wanted to play with idea that people have always wondered whether or not the paranoia of the Puritans, whether not these witches were in some kind of survival mode from their religion. And it really shows how far back the witch tradition goes, not even with just the Western culture, obviously even going back to the Greeks and Romans, how many important witch figures were in the mythology, tragedies like "Madea", and the Babylonian Period. There are even references to witches in the Old Testament, and one of the main areas in horror for me was doing a haunted story, and it's interesting to me after doing research on ghosts that everyone has their own fear, even in the documentary we touched on that. But there are certain different types of iconic elements of fear that are truly universal. But in all of my research, and I have done a shitload, there are only two that are really universal. There are NO cultures on Earth that do not believe in ghosts, that the dead can reappear, and every culture believes in witches, male and female. So, that automatically is interesting. Either there is something that goes to the core of experience, life and death, and the world as it is and that leads to these images. We also wanted to literalize that by saying this fear and tradition goes all the way back to the beginning, especially from the middle of the Season you will start seeing that. But you will also see what the witches in Salem are trying to do. I don't want to give too much away because I think it's awesome, but there is going to be a Lovecraftian element to it very soon.
Rob: There we go! So, you said that you had an HP Lovecraft spin on the show, and myself being a massive purist of his work, I have to ask, can you tell me about that? Will it involve the Cthulhu mythos?
Adam: The more classic Cthulhu mythos may come further down the line. But initially, one is general and one is very specific. The general one is if you read Lovecraft, it's all related in Salem. It's all rooted in an early supernatural American history. When Brannon and I sat down initially, we had said this was not going to be rooted in Arthur Miller, this is rooted in Lovecraft. He remade some of the towns with Innsmouth, and he talked about Elder Gods, but there were also groups who we would come to call witches, but who were worshipping other forces there. Particularly, one of my favorite Lovecraft stories of all time is "Dreams In The Witch House", which really deserves another read. I don't want to give it away, but ever since I was a kid, I will never forget about the story was that there was this hideous old witch from Salem, by the way, that was seen as the most evil of all. And her influence is obviously still survived in contemporary times, particularly in Lovecraft's writing from the 1920's. This witch had a "familiar", a somewhat rat known as "Brown Jenkins". It was not only an iconic figure, but inspired some interesting heavy metal bands, and music. Let's just say that "Brown Jenkins" appears, and is a very important part in understanding which of our witches is using him, and what she is going to become.