They at last called up an apparition, who said that Macbeth should never be overcome by his enemies until Birnam wood should come to the castle of Dunsinane, the royal residence, to attack it.
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.”
Now, Birnam wood was twelve miles from Dunsinane (pronounced Dunsnan), and Macbeth thought that the language was a mystical way of saying that he always would be exempt from danger.
Malcolm, the son of Duncan, the rightful heir to the throne, was a man of spirit, and he went to England to solicit aid of the good King Edward the Confessor against Macbeth. Macduff, having quarrelled with the king, joined Malcolm, and the English king, thinking favorably of their cause, sent a great army into Scotland to discrown Macbeth.
When this army reached Birnam wood, on its way to Dunsinane, Macduff ordered the men each to take the bough of a tree, and to hold it before him as he marched to the attack, that Macbeth might not be able to discover the number and the strength of the assailants. Thus Birnam wood came against Dunsinane. When Macbeth saw the sight his courage failed him, and he saw that his hour had come. A battle ensued, in which he was conquered and killed.
Such is the story, and it seems a pity to spoil so good a story; but I fear that Shakspeare made his wonderful plot of much the same “stuff that dreams are made of.”
Duncan was a grandson of Malcolm II. on his father’s side, and Macbeth was a grandson of the same king, though on the side of his mother. On the death of Malcolm, in 1033, each claimed the throne. Macbeth, according to rule of Scottish succession, had the best claim, but Duncan obtained the power. Macbeth was naturally dissatisfied, and the insolence of Malcolm, the son of Duncan, who placed himself at the head of an intriguing party in Northumberland, changed his dissatisfaction to resentment, and he slew the king. He once had a dream, which he deemed remarkable, in which three old women met him and hailed him as thane of Cromarty, thane of Moray, and finally as king. Upon this light basis genius has built one of the most powerful tales of superstition in the language.
Duncan was slain near Elgin, and not in the castle of Inverness. Malcolm avenged his father’s death, slaying Macbeth at a place called Lumphanan, and not at Dunsinane, as recorded in the play.
And then Sir Walter Scott finds that “Banquo and his son Fleance” never had any real existence, which leaves no material out of which to construct a ghost.
“So there were no witches, after all?” said Charlie.