It was, also, a popular belief that a great share of faith was a protection from witchcraft. Hence, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iii. 2), Dromio of Syracuse says of Nell:
“if my breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel,
She had transform’d me to a curtail-dog, and made me turn i’ the wheel.”
In order, moreover, to check the power of witches, it was supposed to be necessary to propitiate them, a ceremony which was often performed. It is alluded to further on in the same play (iv. 3), where Dromio of Syracuse says—
“Some devils ask but the parings of one’s nail,
A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
A nut, a cherry-stone;”
and in “Macbeth” we read of their being propitiated by gifts of blood. Witches were supposed to have the power of creating storms and other atmospheric disturbances—a notion to which much prominence is given in “Macbeth.” Thus, the witches elect to meet in thunder, lightning, or rain. They are represented as being able to loose and bind the winds (v. 3), to cause vessels to be tempest-tossed at sea. Hence Macbeth addresses them (iv. 1):
“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 germins tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken.”
Thus, by way of illustration, we may quote a curious confession made in Scotland, about the year 1591, by Agnes Sampson, a reputed witch. She vowed that “at the time his majesty [James VI.] was in Denmark, she took a cat and christened it, and afterwards bound to each part of that cat the chiefest parts of a dead man, and several joints of his body; and that in the night following, the said cat was conveyed into the midst of the sea, by herself and other witches, sailing in their riddles, or crieves, and so left the said cat right before the town of Leith, in Scotland. This done, there arose such a tempest in the sea, as a greater hath not been seen, which tempest was the cause of the perishing of a boat or vessel coming from the town of Brunt Island to the town of Leith, wherein were sundry jewels and rich gifts, which should have been presented to the new Queen of Scotland at his majesty’s coming to Leith. Again, it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause of the king’s majesty’s ship, at his coming forth of Denmark, having a contrary wind to the rest of the ships then being in his company, which thing was most strange and true, as the king’s majesty acknowledged.” It is to this circumstance that Shakespeare probably alludes in “Macbeth” (i. 3), where he makes the witch say:
“Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-toss’d.”
Witches were also believed to be able to sell or give winds, a notion thus described in Drayton’s “Moon-Calf” (865):
“She could sell winds to any one that would
Buy them for money, forcing them to hold
What time she listed, tie them in a thread,
Which ever as the seafarer undid
They rose or scantled, as his sails would drive
To the same port whereas he would arrive.”