89. The evidence of Forman and Holinshed has been stated fully, in order that the reader may be in possession of all the materials that may be necessary for forming an accurate judgment upon the point in question; but it seems to be less relied upon than the supposition that the appearance and powers of the beings in the admittedly genuine part of the third scene of the first act are not those formerly attributed to witches, and that Shakspere, having once decided to represent Norns, would never have degraded them "to three old women, who are called by Paddock and Graymalkin, sail in sieves, kill swine, serve Hecate, and deal in all the common charms, illusions, and incantations of vulgar witches. The three who 'look not like the inhabitants o' th' earth, and yet are on't;' they who can 'look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow;' they who seem corporal, but melt into the air, like bubbles of the earth; the weyward sisters, who make themselves air, and have in them more than mortal knowledge, are not beings of this stamp."[1]
[Footnote 1: New Shakspere Society Transactions, vol. i. p.342; Fleay's
Shakspere Manual, p. 248.]
90. Now, there is a great mass of contemporary evidence to show that these supposed characteristics of the Norns are, in fact, some of the chief attributes of the witches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If this be so—if it can be proved that the supposed "goddesses of Destinie" of the play in reality possess no higher powers than could be acquired by ordinary communication with evil spirits, then no weight must be attached to the vague stage direction in the folio, occurring as it does in a volume notorious for the extreme carelessness with which it was produced; and it must be admitted that the "goddesses of Destinie" of Holinshed were sacrificed for the sake of the witches. If, in addition to this, it can be shown that there was a very satisfactory reason why the witches should have been chosen as the representatives of the evil influence instead of the Norns, the argument will be as complete as it is possible to make it.
91. But before proceeding to examine the contemporary evidence, it is necessary, in order to obtain a complete conception of the mythological view of the weird sisters, to notice a piece of criticism that is at once an expansion of, and a variation upon, the theory just stated.[1] It is suggested that the sisters of "Macbeth" are but three in number, but that Shakspere drew upon Scandinavian mythology for a portion of the material he used in constructing these characters, and that he derived the rest from the traditions of contemporary witchcraft; in fact, that the "sisters" are hybrids between Norns and witches. The supposed proof of this is that each sister exercises the special function of one of the Norns. "The third is the special prophetess, whilst the first takes cognizance of the past, and the second of the present, in affairs connected with humanity. These are the tasks of Urda, Verdandi, and Skulda. The first begins by asking, 'When shall we three meet again?' The second decides the time: 'When the battle's lost or won.' The third, the future prophesies: 'That will be ere set of sun.' The first again asks, 'Where?' The second decides: 'Upon the heath.' The third, the future prophesies: 'There to meet with Macbeth.'" But their rôle is most clearly brought out in the famous "Hails":—
1st. Urda. [Past.] All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of
Glamis!
2nd. Verdandi. [Present.] All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
3rd. Skulda. All hail, Macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter.[2]
This sequence is supposed to be retained in other of the sisters' speeches; but a perusal of these will soon show that it is only in the second of the above quotations that it is recognizable with any definiteness; and this, it must be remembered, is an almost verbal transcript from Holinshed, and not an original conception of Shakspere's, who might feel himself quite justified in changing the characters of the speakers, while retaining their utterances. In addition to this, the natural sequence is in many cases utterly and unnecessarily violated; as, for instance, in Act I. sc. iii., where Urda, who should be solely occupied with past matters, predicts, with extreme minuteness, the results that are to follow from her projected voyage to Aleppo, and that without any expression of resentment, but rather with promise of assistance, from Skulda, whose province she is thus invading.
[Footnote 1: In a letter to The Academy, 8th February, 1879, signed
"Charlotte Carmichael.">[
[Footnote 2: I have taken the liberty of printing this quotation as it stands in the text. The writer in The Academy has effected a rearrangement of the dialogue by importing what might be Macbeth's replies to the three sisters from his speech beginning at l. 70, and alternating them with the different "Hails," which, in addition, are not correctly quoted—for what purpose it is difficult to see. It may be added here that in a subsequent number of The Academy, a long letter upon the same subject appeared from Mr. Karl Blind, which seems to prove little except the author's erudition. He assumes the Teutonic origin of the sisters throughout, and, consequently, adduces little evidence in favour of the theory. One of his points is the derivation of the word "weird" or "wayward," which, as will be shown subsequently, was applied to witches. Another point is, that the witch scenes savour strongly of the staff-rime of old German poetry. It is interesting to find two upholders of the Norn-theory relying mainly for proof of their position upon a scene (Act I. sc. i.) which Mr Fleay says that the very statement of this theory (p. 249) must brand as spurious. The question of the sisters' beards too, regarding which Mr. Blind brings somewhat far-fetched evidence, is, I think, more satisfactorily settled by the quotations in the text.]