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Adelaide (also known as Adelaide of the Pasture) is an old lady who appears in Lullaby in Frogland and while initially presented as an ally, she is in fact an antagonist of the series. Referred to as "The Good Woman of the Woods" by Beatrice, Adelaide lives in a secluded hut where she presumably quilts. She is the sister of Auntie Whispers.
She is voiced by John Cleese.
Appearance[]
Adelaide is a short, pale old woman who appears to suffer from some sort of mysterious illness. She has pale, greyish skin, hollow cheeks, pale lips, and round eyes with noticeable dark circles. She wears a pointed blue hat decorated with two red ribbons and several flowers, and it closely resembles the traditional witch hat. Strands of grey hair fall from beneath the hat and onto her forehead. She wears a simple red dress and orange shawl. The dress has a front pocket in which she keeps sewing supplies. The shawl also has a noticeable hourglass symbol on it, similar to that of a black widow spider's.
Personality[]
Adelaide is wicked and wants to keep children as her servants. She works for The Beast as well and makes a deal with Beatrice where she would give her scissors that turned her family back to humans in exchange for Greg and Wirt. She wants to use them for work.
She is also deceitful, as it is shown she pretends to be sick to get Beatrice, Greg and Wirt to feel sorry for her so she can lure them to her.
History[]
At some point prior to Wirt and Gregory's adventure in The Unknown, Adelaide made a deal with Beatrice, promising her a magic pair of scissors to snip off Beatrice's family's wings in order to turn them back into humans in exchange for a child servant.
When Beatrice returns to Adelaide in Lullaby in Frogland, she enters through the chimney. Adelaide promptly tells her to close the flue as the fresh air "will be the death of [her]". Beatrice then tells her that she found Wirt and Greg and is not willing to turn them over, but Adelaide tries to persuade her and complains about being a weak, old lady who "needs a strong child servant". When Wirt and Greg show up at the scene, she traps them in yarn and rejoices in her new servants. As revenge, Beatrice opens the window and lets in the fresh night air, ending up melting Adelaide away.
Adelaide was intending to fill Wirt and Greg's heads with wool in order for them to do her bidding without intervening. She said with devotion how she obeyed "the voice of the night" and "the beast of the eternal darkness", implying that she was a servant of the Beast.
She seems to embody false hope.
Adelaide is sisters with Auntie Whispers and both of them appear to be more like witches than regular people, because she has more a spider like body (original with many arms) and her sister can eat the black turtles without going insane like the dog in the beginning of the series and turning into a monster, but there is more to this than told, if you pause at just the right point on the episode with Adelaide you will see paintings on her wall next to her bed, showing her, her sister, and one more figure, suggesting Adelaide has another sister.
Powers & Abilities[]
Adelaide is known to have some control over string, likely magical, as she commanded string to capture both Wirt and Greg. She also has some sort of magic power to fill their heads with wool, as she said she would do, but is unknown how, for she never got to go through with her word.
Trivia[]
- The name Adelaide means "of noble kind" in German. The probable reason as to why this was chosen as her name was to perpetuate the belief she was benevolent.
- In The Ringing of the Bell, it is revealed that Adelaide is the sister of Auntie Whispers, who warns the boys not to trust her.
- The symbol of a black widow spider appears on the back of her shawl and is visible when she gets out of bed.
- Adelaide's claim of the night air being poisonous seems to correspond to beliefs from around the late 19th century that deadly vapors rose from the earth after dark.
- She and Auntie Whispers are the only female characters voiced by men.
- In an older concept art she was going to have many arms, furthering the spider aesthetic.
- In an older script the reasoning for her to want a child servant was due to her being jealous of her sister.
- Her theme involves many string instruments because she loves strings.
- Adelaide and Auntie Whispers are both implied to be witches. This aligns with original concept of The Beast being called 'Old Scratch', as a reference to the Devil. Witches were often considered the Devil's servants in antiquity, notably offering him child sacrifices (hence Adelaide's obsession with children, and her devotion to The Beast).
Gallery[]
References[]
To be added