The Witches

The Witches

1. Supernatural

   • Graymalkin and Paddock
     • The witches talk about 'Graymalkin' and 'Paddock' in 1.1. These are a cat and a toad. People believed that witches had animal helpers to help them do their wicked deeds. Shakespeare relates to theses characters to show the audience that they are wicked creatures.
   • Meeting Macbeth
     • The audience see them planning to meet Macbeth. This suggests that nothing that happens is accidental.
   • Significance of the number three
     • The witches often speak or work in threes. Throughout history, the number three has frequently been seen as a magical number.
     • In Greek and Roman mythology, witches who talked about fates (wyrd sisters) were in a group of three. In Norse mythology, there were also a group of three women who made predictions about the future.
     • The Rule of Three is a pagan belief - it states that whatever energy witches put into the world will be returned to them three times.
     • In Macbeth, the witches seem to be in a group of three, and speak in threes, to strengthen their power.
   • Masters
     • The spirits that the witches conjure (make appear by magic) are 'their masters'. This shows that supernatural beings or creatures control them.
   • Cannot be controlled
     • When the witches speak with Macbeth and Banquo, they only give them a little information. Macbeth orders them to stay, but they disappear: 'Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.'(1.3). This shows that he cannot control the witches' actions (or his own fate).
   • 'Weird sisters'
     • The witches are also called the 'weird sisters'. This has roots in classical mythology: the three 'wyrd' sisters were the fates, who knew men's destinies.

2. Evil

   • Disrupt the natural order
     • The witches chant the line 'Fair is foul and foul is fair' (1.1). This shows that the natural order of things is already being disrupted and this will continue throughout the play. The natural order is disrupted because of the witches.
     • Nature becomes harsher, the God-appointed king is murdered, friendships are severed, children are kill before their parents, and Lady Macbeth takes her own life before her time.
   • Cause harm
     • At the start of Act 1, Scene 3, the witches are talking about what they have been doing. The second witch says things like 'killing swine' - this suggests that the witch has been harming animals.
     • The first witch says a story about how she plants to torture a sailor whose wife refused to share her chestnuts: 'Bit in a sieve I'll thither sail. / And like a rat without a tail, / I'll do, I'll do and I'll do' (1.3).
     • Immediately, the witches are shown to be ruthless and evil - they harm things just because they can, or because they cannot get their own way.
   • Inhumane looking
     • When Macbeth and Banquo first see the witches, Banquo doesn't know what they are: 'What are these, / So withered and so wild in their attire, / That look not like th' inhabitants o' th earth, / And yet are on't?' (1.3).
     • The witches don't look human. Their clothing is 'withered' and 'wild'. This suggests that they don't live like normal members of society.
   • Relevance of the sieve
     • The idea that one of the witches can sail in a sieve ('in a sieve I'll thither sail' (1.3)) is related to the accusations made against the Berwick witches. These were a group of people accused of trying to harm King James 1 when he returned with his new wife across the North Sea. Shakespeare makes it very clear that these women embody all the evil-doing associated with witches at the time.
   • ugly appearance
     • Banquo struggles to identify whether they are women or not: 'you should be women / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so' (1.3).
     • Their unconventional, even ugly appearance is perhaps to remind the audience of how unattractive witchcraft was. Women who practised it started to look inhumane.
     • This shows Shakespeare conforming to the ideas of Jacobean England, where the supernatural was feared and seen as unnatural. Those who practised it where viewed as evil - the witches' ugly appearance may echo this apparent inner-evil.

3. Casting a Spell

   • Double meanings
     • These lines show that the witches' speeches (and their intentions) are full of double meanings - they are not what they appear, and they cannot be trusted.
   • Trochaic tetrameter
     • These lines are written in trochaic tetrameter (four sets of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable - 'double,double toil and trouble' (4.1)).
     • Shakespeare usually writes in iambic pentameter, so this highlights the witches as unusual.
     • This structure shows that the witches speak in a different way to everyone else and that they are doing something incredibly important, as they stress these harsh sounds and repeat the lines themselves.
     • This moment is almost a threat to Macbeth - they are chanting and aiming their spell at him, and it is a powerful spell.