Folk-lore of Shakespeare. Dyer Thomas Firminger Thiselton
the only way to break the spell and get out of her power.60
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.”
So, in “Macbeth” (i. 3):
“2 Witch. I’ll give thee a wind.
1 Witch. Thou’rt kind.
3 Witch. And I another.”
Singer quotes from Sumner’s “Last Will and Testament:”
“In Ireland, and in Denmark both,
Witches for gold will sell a man a wind,
Which, in the corner of a napkin wrapp’d,
Shall blow him safe unto what coast he will.”
At one time the Finlanders and Laplanders drove a profitable trade by the sale of winds. After being paid they knitted three magical knots, and told the buyer that when he untied the first he would have a good gale; when the second, a strong wind; and when the third, a severe tempest.61
The sieve, as a symbol of the clouds, has been regarded among all nations of the Aryan stock as the mythical vehicle used by witches, nightmares, and other elfish beings in their excursions over land and sea.62 Thus, the first witch in “Macbeth” (i. 3), referring to the scoff which she had received from a sailor’s wife, says:
“Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail.”63
Stories of voyages performed in this way are common enough in Germany. A man, for instance, going through a corn-field, finds a sieve on the path, which he takes with him. He does not go far before a young lady hurries after him, and hunts up and down as if looking for something, ejaculating all the time, “How my children are crying in England!” Thereupon the man lays down the sieve, and has hardly done so ere sieve and lady vanish. In the case of another damsel of the same species, mentioned by Mr. Kelly, the usual exclamation is thus varied: “My sieve rim! my sieve rim! how my mother is calling me in England!” At the sound of her mother’s voice the daughter immediately thinks of her sieve. Steevens quotes from the “Life of Doctor Fian,” “a notable sorcerer,” burned at Edinburgh, January, 1591, how that he and a number of witches went to sea, “each one in a riddle or cive.” In the “Discovery of Witchcraft,” Reginald Scot says it was believed that “witches could sail in an egg-shell, a cockle or muscle-shell, through and under the tempestuous seas.” Thus, in “Pericles” (iv. 4), Gower says:
“Thus time we waste, and longest leagues make short;
Sail seas in cockles, have, and wish but for’t.”
Their dance is thus noticed in “Macbeth” (iv. 1):
“I’ll charm the air to give a sound
While you perform your antic round.”
Witches also were supposed to have the power of vanishing at will, a notion referred to in “Macbeth” (i. 3), where, in reply to Banquo’s inquiry as to whither the witches are vanished, Macbeth replies:
“Into the air; and what seem’d corporal melted
As breath into the wind.”
In his letter to his wife he likewise observes: “They made themselves air, into which they vanished.” Hecate, in the third act, fifth scene, after giving instructions to the weird host, says:
“I am for the air; this night I’ll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end.”
To this purpose they prepared various ointments, concerning which Reginald Scot64 says: “The devil teacheth them to make ointment of the bowels and members of children, whereby they ride in the air and accomplish all their desires. After burial they steal them out of their graves and seethe them in a caldron till the flesh be made potable, of which they make an ointment by which they ride in the air.” Lord Bacon also informs us that the “ointment the witches use is reported to be made of
Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” p. 181.
Olaus Magnus’s “History of the Goths,” 1638, p. 47. See note to “The Pirate.”
See Hardwick’s “Traditions and Folk-Lore,” pp. 108, 109; Kelly’s “Indo-European Folk-Lore,” pp. 214, 215.
In Greek, ἑπι ῥιπους πλειν, “to go to sea in a sieve,” was a proverbial expression for an enterprise of extreme hazard or impossible of achievement. – Clark and Wright’s “Notes to Macbeth,” 1877, p. 82.
“Discovery of Witchcraft,” 1584, book iii. chap. i. p. 40; see Spalding’s “Elizabethan Demonology,” p. 103.