Every point
in the play that bears upon the subject at all tends to show that
Shakspere intentionally replaced the "goddesses of Destinie" by witches;
and that the supposed Norn origin of these characters is the result of a
somewhat too great eagerness to unfold a novel and startling theory.
[Footnote 1: Act I. sc. v. l. 2.]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Fleay avoids the difficulty created by this passage,
which alludes to the witches as "the weird sisters," by supposing that
these lines were interpolated by Middleton--a method of criticism that
hardly needs comment. Act III. sc. iv. l. 134.]
[Footnote 3: Act V. sc. v. l. 43.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid. sc. viii. l. 19.]
100. Assuming, therefore, that the witch-nature of the sisters is
conclusively proved, it now becomes necessary to support the assertion
previously made, that good reason can be shown why Shakspere should
have elected to represent witches rather than Norns.
It is impossible to read "Macbeth" without noticing the prominence given
to the belief that witches had the power of creating storms and other
atmospheric disturbances, and that they delighted in so doing. The
sisters elect to meet in thunder, lightning, or rain. To them "fair is
foul, and foul is fair," as they "hover through the fog and filthy air."
The whole of the earlier part of the third scene of the first act is one
blast of tempest with its attendant devastation.
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