The third witch mentions other things that are thrown into the pot, as:—
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-delivered by a drab.Macbeth, A. IV., S. 1.
It was thought that witches could change themselves, and other people, into the form of animals. In Wales, the cat and the hare were the favourite animals into which witches transformed themselves, but they did not necessarily confine themselves to these animals. They were able to travel in the air on a broom-stick; make children ill; give maids the nightmare; curse with madness, animals; bring misfortune on families; hinder the dairy maid from making
butter; and many more imaginary things were placed to their credit.
The personal appearance of witches, as given by Shakespeare, corresponds exactly with the Welsh idea of these hags. On this subject the poet writes:—
What are these
So wither’d and so wild in their attire
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,
And yet are on’t?—Live you? Or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy fingers laying
Upon her skinny lips:—you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.Macbeth, Act I., S. 3.
A striking and pathetic portrait of a witch, taken from Otway’s Orphan, Act. II., is given in No. 117 of the Spectator. It is so true to life and apposite to our subject that I will quote it:—
In a close lane, as I pursu’d my journey,
I spy’d a wrinkled hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
Her eyes with scalding-rheum were gall’d, and red,
Cold palsy shook her head, her hands seemed wither’d,
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt
The tatter’d remnant of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold;
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o’er coarsely patched,
With different colour’d rags, black, red, white, yellow.
And seem’d to speak variety of wretchedness.
A picture such as this is enough to create sympathy and charity in a selfish heart, but in those dark days, when faith in witchcraft prevailed, such a poor old decrepit woman inspired awe, and was shunned as a malicious evil-doer by all her neighbours.