Three Witches

The Three Witches or Weird Sisters are characters in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Their origin lies in Holinshed's Chronicles, a history of England, Scotland and Ireland. Other possible sources, aside from Shakespeare's imagination itself, include British folklore, such contemporary treatises on witchcraft as King James VI of Scotland's Daemonologie, Scandinavian legends of the Norns, and ancient classical myths of the Fates: the Greek Moirai and the Roman Parcae. Productions of Macbeth began incorporating portions of Thomas Middleton's contemporaneous play, The Witch, circa 1618, two years after Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare's witches are prophets who hail Macbeth, the general, early in the play, and prophesy his ascent to king. Upon killing the king and ascending the throne of Scotland, Macbeth hears them ambiguously prophesy his eventual downfall. The darkly contradictory witches, their "filthy" trappings and supernatural activities, all set an ominous tone for the play. Artists in the eighteenth century depicted the witches variously, as have many directors since.