Elizabethan Demonology Part 9

[Footnote 3: whome when they attentivelie beheld, woondering much at the sight, the first of them spake and said;]

[Footnote 4: 'All haile, Makbeth, thane of Glammis' (for he had latelie entered into that dignitie and office by the death of his father Sinell).]

[Footnote 5: The second of them said; 'Haile, Makbeth, thane of Cawder.']

[Footnote 6: But the third said; 'All haile, Makbeth, that heereafter shalt be king of Scotland.']

95. The next objection is, that the sisters exercise powers that witches did not possess. They can "look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow, and which will not." In other words, they foretell future events, which witches could not do. But this is not the fact. The recorded witch trials teem with charges of having prophesied what things were about to happen; no charge is more common. The following, quoted by Charles Knight in his biography of Shakspere, might almost have suggested the simile in the last-mentioned lines. Johnnet Wischert is "indicted for pa.s.sing to the green growing corn in May, twenty-two years since or thereby, sitting thereupon tymous in the morning before the sun-rising, and being there found and demanded what she was doing, thou[1] answered, I shall tell thee; I have been peeling the blades of the corn. I find it will be a dear year, the blade of the corn grows withersones [contrary to the course of the sun], and when it grows sonegatis about [with the course of the sun] it will be good cheap year."[2] The following is another apt ill.u.s.tration of the power, which has been translated from the unwieldy Lowland Scotch account of the trial of Bessie Roy in 1590. The Dittay charged her thus: "You are indicted and accused that whereas, when you were dwelling with William King in Barra, about twelve years ago, or thereabouts, and having gone into the field to pluck lint with other women, in their presence made a compa.s.s in the earth, and a hole in the midst thereof; and afterwards, by thy conjurations thou causedst a great worm to come up first out of the said hole, and creep over the compa.s.s; and next a little worm came forth, which crept over also; and last [thou] causedst a great worm to come forth, which could not pa.s.s over the compa.s.s, but fell down and died. Which enchantment and witchcraft thou interpretedst in this form: that the first great worm that crept over the compa.s.s was the goodman William King, who should live; and the little worm was a child in the goodwife's womb, who was unknown to any one to be with child, and that the child should live; and, thirdly, the last great worm thou interpretedst to be the goodwife, who should die: _which came to pa.s.s after thy speaking_."[3] Surely there could hardly be plainer instances of looking "into the seeds of time, and saying which grain will grow, and which will not," than these.

[Footnote 1: Sic.]

[Footnote 2: p. 438.]

[Footnote 3: Pitcairn, I. ii. 207. Cf. also Ibid. pp. 212, 213, and 231, where the crime is described as "foreknowledge."]

96. Perhaps this is the most convenient place for pointing out the full meaning of the first scene of "Macbeth," and its necessary connection with the rest of the play. It is, in fact, the f.a.g-end of a witches'

sabbath, which, if fully represented, would bear a strong resemblance to the scene at the commencement of the fourth act. But a long scene on such a subject would be tedious and unmeaning at the commencement of the play. The audience is therefore left to a.s.sume that the witches have met, performed their conjurations, obtained from the evil spirits the information concerning Macbeth's career that they desired to obtain, and perhaps have been commanded by the fiends to perform the mission they subsequently carry through. All that is needed for the dramatic effect is a slight hint of probable diabolical interference, and that Macbeth is to be the special object of it; and this is done in as artistic a manner as is perhaps imaginable. In the first scene they obtain their information; in the second they utter their prediction. Every minute detail of these scenes is based upon the broad, recognized facts of witchcraft.

97. It is also suggested that the power of vanis.h.i.+ng from the sight possessed by the sisters--the power to make themselves air--was not characteristic of witches. But this is another a.s.sertion that would not have been made, had the authorities upon the subject been investigated with only slight attention. No feature of the crime of witchcraft is better attested than this; and the modern witch of story-books is still represented as riding on a broomstick--a relic of the enchanted rod with which the devil used to provide his wors.h.i.+ppers, upon which to come to his sabbaths.[1] One of the charges in the indictment against the notorious Dr. Fian ran thus: "Fylit for suffering himself to be careit to North Berwik kirk, as if he had bene souchand athoirt [whizzing above] the eird."[2] Most effectual ointments were prepared for effecting this method of locomotion, which have been recorded, and are given below[3] as an ill.u.s.tration of the wild kind of recipes which Shakspere rendered more grim in his caldron scene. The efficacy of these ointments is well ill.u.s.trated by a story narrated by Reginald Scot, which unfortunately, on account of certain incidents, cannot be given in his own terse words. The hero of it happened to be staying temporarily with a friend, and on one occasion found her rubbing her limbs with a certain preparation, and mumbling the while. After a time she vanished out of his sight; and he, being curious to investigate the affair, rubbed himself with the remaining ointment, and almost immediately he found himself transported a long distance through the air, and deposited right in the very midst of a witches' sabbath. Naturally alarmed, he cried out, "'In the name of G.o.d, what make I heere?' and upon those words the whole a.s.semblie vanished awaie."[4]

[Footnote 1: Scot, book iii. ch. iii. p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: Pitcairn, I. ii. 210. Cf. also Ibid. p. 211. Scot, book iii. ch. vii. p. 51.]

[Footnote 3: "Sundrie receipts and ointments made and used for the transportation of witches, and other miraculous effects.

"Rx. The fat of yoong children, & seeth it with water in a brazen vessell, reseruing the thickest of that which remaineth boiled in the bottome, which they laie up & keep untill occasion serveth to use it.

They put hereinto Eleoselinum, Aconitum, frondes populeas, & Soote."

This is given almost verbatim in Middleton's Witch.

"Rx. Sium, Acarum Vulgare, Pentaphyllon, the bloud of a Flittermouse, Solanum Somniferum, & oleum."

It would seem that fern seed had the same virtue.--I Hen. IV. II. i.]

[Footnote 4: Scot, book iii. ch. vi. p. 46.]

98. The only vestige of a difficulty, therefore, that remains is the use of the term "weird sisters" in describing the witches. It is perfectly clear that Holinshed used these words as a sort of synonym for the "G.o.ddesses of Destinie;" but with such a ma.s.s of evidence as has been produced to show that Shakspere elected to introduce witches in the place of the Norns, it surely would not be unwarrantable to suppose that he might retain this term as a poetical and not unsuitable description of the characters to whom it was applied. And this is the less improbable as it can be shown that both words were at times applied to witches. As the quotation given subsequently[1] proves, the Scotch witches were in the habit of speaking of the frequenters of a particular sabbath as "the sisters;" and in Heywood's "Witches of Lancas.h.i.+re," one of the characters says about a certain act of supposed witchcraft, "I remember that some three months since I crossed a wayward woman; one that I now suspect."[2]

[Footnote 1: -- 107, p. 114.]

[Footnote 2: Act V. sc. iii.]

99. Here, then, in the very stronghold of the supposed proof of the Norn-theory, it is possible to extract convincing evidence that the sisters are intended to be merely witches. It is not surprising that other portions of the play in which the sisters are mentioned should confirm this view. Banquo, upon hearing the fulfilment of the prophecy of the second witch, clearly expresses his opinion of the origin of the "foreknowledge" he has received, in the exclamation, "What, can the devil speak true?" For the devil most emphatically spoke through the witches; but how could he in any sense be said to speak through Norns?

Again, Macbeth informs his wife that on his arrival at Forres, he made inquiry into the amount of reliance that could be placed in the utterances of the witches, "and learned by the perfectest report that they had more in them than mortal knowledge."[1] This would be possible enough if witches were the subjects of the investigation, for their chief t.i.tle to authority would rest upon the general opinion current in the neighbourhood in which they dwelt; but how could such an inquiry be carried out successfully in the case of Norns? It is noticeable, too, that Macbeth knows exactly where to find the sisters when he wants them; and when he says--

"More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst,"[2]

he makes another clear allusion to the traffic of the witches with the devil. After the events recorded in Act IV. sc. i., Macbeth speaks of the prophecies upon which he relies as "the equivocation of the fiend,"[3] and the prophets as "these juggling fiends;"[4] and with reason--for he has seen and heard the very devils themselves, the masters of the witches and sources of all their evil power. Every point in the play that bears upon the subject at all tends to show that Shakspere intentionally replaced the "G.o.ddesses of Destinie" by witches; and that the supposed Norn origin of these characters is the result of a somewhat too great eagerness to unfold a novel and startling theory.

[Footnote 1: Act I. sc. v. l. 2.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Fleay avoids the difficulty created by this pa.s.sage, which alludes to the witches as "the weird sisters," by supposing that these lines were interpolated by Middleton--a method of criticism that hardly needs comment. Act III. sc. iv. l. 134.]

[Footnote 3: Act V. sc. v. l. 43.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid. sc. viii. l. 19.]

100. a.s.suming, therefore, that the witch-nature of the sisters is conclusively proved, it now becomes necessary to support the a.s.sertion previously made, that good reason can be shown why Shakspere should have elected to represent witches rather than Norns.

It is impossible to read "Macbeth" without noticing the prominence given to the belief that witches had the power of creating storms and other atmospheric disturbances, and that they delighted in so doing. The sisters elect to meet in thunder, lightning, or rain. To them "fair is foul, and foul is fair," as they "hover through the fog and filthy air."

The whole of the earlier part of the third scene of the first act is one blast of tempest with its attendant devastation. They can loose and bind the winds,[1] cause vessels to be tempest-tossed at sea, and mutilate wrecked bodies.[2] They describe themselves as "posters of the sea and land;"[3] the heath they meet upon is blasted;[4] and they vanish "as breath into the wind."[5] Macbeth conjures them to answer his questions thus:--

"Though you untie the winds, and let them fight Against the churches; though the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation up; Though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down; Though castles topple on their warders' heads; Though palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure Of nature's germens tumble all together, Even till destruction sicken."[6]

[Footnote 1: I. iii. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 2: Act I. sc. iii. l. 28.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. l. 32.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid. l. 77.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid. ll. 81, 82.]

[Footnote 6: Act IV. sc. i. ll. 52-60.]

101. Now, this command over the elements does not form at all a prominent feature in the English records of witchcraft. A few isolated charges of the kind may be found. In 1565, for instance, a witch was burnt who confessed that she had caused all the tempests that had taken place in that year. Scot, too, has a few short sentences upon this subject, but does not give it the slightest prominence.[1] Nor in the earlier Scotch trials recorded by Pitcairn does this charge appear amongst the accusations against the witches. It is exceedingly curious to notice the utter harmless nature of the charges brought against the earlier culprits; and how, as time went on and the panic increased, they gradually deepened in colour, until no act was too gross, too repulsive, or too ridiculously impossible to be excluded from the indictment. The following quotations from one of the earliest reported trials are given because they ill.u.s.trate most forcibly the condition of the poor women who were supposed to be witches, and the real basis of fact upon which the belief in the crime subsequently built itself.

[Footnote 1: Book iii. ch. 13, p. 60.]

102. Bessie Dunlop was tried for witchcraft in 1576. One of the princ.i.p.al accusations against her was that she held intercourse with a devil who appeared to her in the shape of a neighbour of hers, one Thom Reed, who had recently died. Being asked how and where she met Thom Reed, she said, "As she was gangand betwixt her own house and the yard of Monkcastell, dryvand her ky to the pasture, and makand heavy sair dule with herself, gretand[1] very fast for her cow that was dead, her husband and child that wer lyand sick in the land ill, and she new risen out of gissane,[2] the aforesaid Thom met her by the way, healsit[3] her, and said, 'Gude day, Bessie,' and she said, 'G.o.d speed you, guidman.' 'Sancta Marie,' said he, 'Bessie, why makes thow sa great dule and sair greting for ony wardlie thing?' She answered 'Alas! have I not great cause to make great dule, for our gear is trakit,[4] and my husband is on the point of deid, and one babie of my own will not live, and myself at ane weak point; have I not gude cause then to have ane sair hart?' But Thom said, 'Bessie, thou hast crabit[5] G.o.d, and askit some thing you suld not have done; and tharefore I counsell thee to mend to Him, for I tell thee thy barne sall die and the seik cow, or you come hame; and thy twa sheep shall die too; but thy husband shall mend, and shall be as hale and fair as ever he was.' And then I was something blyther, for he tauld me that my guidman would mend. Then Thom Reed went away fra me in through the yard of Monkcastell, and I thought that he gait in at ane narrower hole of the d.y.k.e nor anie erdlie man culd have gone throw, and swa I was something fleit."[6]

[Footnote 1: Weeping. I have only half translated this pa.s.sage, for I feared to spoil the sad simplicity of it.]

[Footnote 2: Child-bed.]

[Footnote 3: Saluted.]

[Footnote 4: Dwindled away.]

[Footnote 5: Displeased.]

[Footnote 6: Frightened.]

This was the first time that Thom appeared to her. On the third occasion he asked her "if she would not trow[1] in him." She said "she would trow in ony bodye did her gude." Then Thom promised her much wealth if she would deny her christendom. She answered that "if she should be riven at horsis taillis, she suld never do that, but promised to be leal and trew to him in ony thing she could do," whereat he was angry.

[Footnote 1: Trust.]

On the fourth occasion, the poor woman fell further into sin, and accompanied Thom to a fairy meeting. Thom asked her to join the party; but she said "she saw na proffeit to gang thai kind of gaittis, unless she kend wherefor." Thom offered the old inducement, wealth; but she replied that "she dwelt with her awin husband and bairnis," and could not leave them. And so Thom began to be very crabit with her, and said, "if so she thought, she would get lytill gude of him."