It is an error to say that the Witches in Macbeth “are never called witches” (compare Act i, scene 3: “‘Give me!’ quoth I. ‘A-roint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries”). However, their designation as Weird Sisters fully settles the case of their Germanic origin.
This name “Weird” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Norn Wyrd (Sax. Wurth; O. H. Ger. Wurd; Norse, Urd), who represents the Past, as her very name shows. Wurd is die Gewordene—the “Has Been,” or rather the “Has Become,” if one could say so in English.
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In Shakspeare the Witches are three in number—even as in Norse, German, as well as in Keltic and other mythologies. Urd, properly speaking, is the Past. Skuld is the Future, or “That Which shall Be.” Verdandi, usually translated as the Present, has an even deeper meaning. Her name is not to be derived from vera (to be), but from verda (Ger. werden). This verb, which has a mixed meaning of “to be,” “to become,” or to “grow,” has been lost in English. Verdandi is, therefore, not merely a representative of present Being, but of the process of Growing, or of Evolution—which gives her figure a profounder aspect. Indeed, there is generally more significance in mythological tales than those imagine who look upon them chiefly as a barren play of fancy.
Incidentally it may be remarked that, though Shakspeare’s Weird Sisters are three in number—corresponding to Urd, Verdandi and Skuld—German and Northern mythology and folk-lore occasionally speak of twelve or seven of them. In the German tale of Dornröschen, or the Sleeping Beauty, there are twelve good fays; and a thirteenth, who works the evil spell. Once, in German folk-lore, we meet with but two Sisters of Fate—one of them called Kann, the other Muss. Perhaps these are representatives of man’s measure of free will (that which he “can”), and of that which is his inevitable fate—or, that which he “must” do.
Though the word “Norn” has been lost in England and Germany, it is possibly preserved in a German folk-lore ditty, which speaks of three Sisters of Fate as “Nuns.” Altogether, German folk-lore is still full of rimes about three Weird Sisters. They are sometimes called Wild Women, or Wise Women, or the Measurers (Metten)—namely, of Fate; or, euphemistically, like the Eumenides, the Advisers of Welfare (Heil-Räthinnen), reminding us of the counsels given to Macbeth in the apparition scene; or the Quick Judges (Gach-Schepfen). Even as in the Edda, these German fays weave and twist threads or ropes, and attach them to distant parts, thus fixing the weft of Fate. One of these fays is sometimes called Held, and described as black, or as half dark half white—like Hel, the Mistress of the Nether World. That German fay is also called Rachel, clearly a contraction of Rach-Hel, i.e. the Avengeress Hel.
Now, in Macbeth also the Weird Sisters are described as “black.” The coming up of Hekate with them in the cave-scene might not unfitly be looked upon as a parallel with the German Held, or Rach-Hel, and the Norse Hel; these Teutonic deities being originally Goddesses of Nocturnal Darkness, and of the Nether World, even as Hekate.
In German folk-lore, three Sisters of Fate bear the names of Wilbet, Worbet and Ainbet. Etymologically these names seem to refer to the well-disposed nature of a fay representing the Past; to the warring or worrying troubles of the Present; and to the terrors (Ain = Agin) of the Future. All over southern Germany, from Austria to Alsace and Rhenish Hesse, the three fays are known under various names besides Wilbet, Worbet, and Ainbet—for instance, as Mechtild, Ottilia, and Gertraud; as Irmina, Adela, and Chlothildis, and so forth. The fay in the middle of this trio is always a good fay, a white fay—but blind. Her treasure (the very names of Ottilia and Adela point to a treasure) is continually being taken from her by the third fay, a dark and evil one, as well as by the first. This myth has been interpreted as meaning that the Present, being blinded as to its own existence, is continually being encroached upon, robbed as it were, by the dark Future and the Past. Of this particular trait there is no vestige in Shakspeare’s Weird Sisters. They, like the Norns, “go hand in hand.” But there is another point which claims attention Shakspeare’s Witches are bearded. (“You should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.” Act i, scene 3.)
It need scarcely be brought to recollection that a commingling of the female and male character occurs in the divine and semi-divine figures of various mythological systems—including the Bearded Venus. Of decisive importance is, however, the fact of a bearded Weird Sister having apparently been believed in by our heathen German forefathers.
Near Wessobrunn, in Upper Bavaria, where the semi-heathen fragment of a cosmogonic lay, known as “Wessobrunn Prayer,” was discovered, there has also been found, of late, a rudely-sculptured three-headed image. It is looked upon as an ancient effigy of the German Norns. The Cloister of the three Holy Bournes, or Fountains, which stands close by the place of discovery, is supposed to have been set up on ground that had once served for pagan worship. Probably the later monkish establishment of the Three Holy Bournes had taken the place of a similarly named heathen sanctuary where the three Sisters of Fate were once adored. Indeed, the name of all the corresponding fays in yet current German folk-lore is connected with holy wells. This quite fits in with the three Eddic Bournes near the great Tree of Existence, at one of which—apparently at the oldest, which is the very Source of Being—the Norns live, “the maidens that over the Sea of Age travel in deep foreknowledge,” and of whom it is said that: