Their prophecies create a sense of inevitability and fate, as Macbeth becomes increasingly consumed by his quest for power in order to fulfill the witches' predictions.

Their influence pushes Macbeth to commit increasingly ruthless and morally questionable acts in order to secure his position as king. The witches' presence serves as a constant reminder of the corrupting influence of power and ambition.

The witches contribute to the play's dark and supernatural atmosphere. Their eerie incantations, grotesque appearance, and mysterious presence add an element of foreboding and dread to the story.

By introducing elements of the supernatural, the witches blur the lines between reality and the supernatural realm, reinforcing the idea that the world of "Macbeth" is one governed by chaos and uncertainty.

The witches contribute to the play's exploration of the consequences of disrupting the established order and the chaos that ensues.

"You should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so."

The Witches of Macbeth
Valencia Long, MBBS; Leonard J. Hoenig, MD

Today, witches continue to be celebrated on. Halloween, in films, and on TV. The forerunner to all of these is Shakespeare’s masterful portrayal of the Witches of Macbeth, which still fascinates audiences. Yet, Shakespeare was a product of a time when witchcraft was feared and when innocent women could be condemned as witches,merely for having excessive facial hair. (p.g. 1)

Restoration version of the witches, who were presented as "faery" creatures, dancing, singing, miraculously appearing and vanishing by means of a "machine." Thus, the witches in the Restoration and eighteenth century are not presented as evil demons but as somewhat comical, naughty 'milk- curdler.

In Shakespeare's time, belief in witchcraft and the supernatural was widespread, and fear of witches was a real and tangible phenomenon.

The portrayal of the witches in "Macbeth" would have resonated with audiences who were familiar with contemporary beliefs and anxieties surrounding witchcraft.

The depiction of the witches as eerie, otherworldly figures who possess supernatural powers would have likely struck fear into the hearts of Shakespeare's original audience.

The idea of encountering such malevolent beings would have been genuinely terrifying for many people of the time

In modern productions of "Macbeth," the ability of the witches to convey fear may depend on various factors, including the interpretation of their characters, the director's vision, and the overall tone of the production.

Some productions may choose to emphasise the witches' unsettling and sinister aspects, using elements such as eerie music, chilling visuals, and eerie performances to evoke fear in the audience.

Other productions may take a different approach, portraying the witches in a more ambiguous or even sympathetic light, which could diminish their ability to strike fear and instead evoke curiosity or intrigue.

Additionally, the witches represent the darker aspects of human nature, such as greed, ambition, and the lust for power. These themes are timeless and resonate with audiences across different time periods and cultures.

Goold's production, notably performed by the Chichester Festival Theatre and later transferring to the West End and Broadway, took a modern and psychological approach to the play.

In this adaptation, the witches are portrayed as nurses in a dystopian hospital setting, blurring the lines between the supernatural and psychological elements of the story. This interpretation may have emphasised the witches' role as symbols of madness and inner turmoil rather than external forces of fate.

Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England - Macfarlane

Map 1 - pg 13 - https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:18bb18ce-a891-4df9-9510-c858e333e627

Map 2 - pg 31 - https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:6816ce33-451b-4b4b-8a63-f7613cd8b562

Table 1 - pg 15 - https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:34201d0b-1795-47fa-b8d6-4ffd7ef508d2

THE HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT - M . Summers

CHAPTER VII - THE WITCH IN DRAMATIC LITERATURE

The English theatre, in common with every other form of the world's drama, had a religious, or even more exactly a liturgical, origin. From the very heart of the liturgy itself arose the Mystery Play. The method of performing these early English guild plays has been frequently and exactly described, and I would only draw attention to one feature of the movable scaffold which passed from station to station, that is the dark cavern at the side of the last of the three sedes, Hell-mouth. No pains were spared to make this as horrible and realistic as might be.

pg 289 - 290

There are few scenes which have so caught the world's fancy as the wild overture to Macbeth. In storm and wilderness we are suddenly brought face to face with three mysterious phantasms that ride on the wind and mingle with the mist in thunder, lightning, and in rain. They are not agents of evil, they are evil; nameless, spectral, wholly horrible. And then, after the briefest of intervals, they reappear to relate such exploits as killing swine and begging chestnuts from a sailor's wife, to brag of having secured such talismans as the thumb of a drowned pilot. Can this change have been intentional? I think not, and its very violence and quickness are jarring to a degree. The meeting with Hecate, who is angry, and scolds them " bel-dames as you are, Saucy and overbold " does not mend matters, and in spite of the horror when the apparitions are evoked, the ingredients of the cauldron, however noisome and hideous, are too material for " A deed without a name." There is a weakness here, and it says much for the genius of the tragedy that this weakness is not obtrusively felt.

Nevertheless it was upon this that the actors seized when for theatrical effect the incantation scenes had to be " written up" by the interpolation of fresh matter.

Witchcraft and sorcery - edited by Max Marwich
Introduction - pg 11

Each of us in modern society becomes aware of the sinister figures of witch and sorcerer through myth and fairy-tale, and they therefore belong to our world of fantasy. This makes it difficult for us to appreciate that there are societies actually existing in which these characters have a much clearer and threatening reality. Similarly it is hard to realize how recently it was that they were part of the reality of the societies from which ours is directly descended.

As to motive, witches are considered to be slaves of aberration and addiction, and, thus conceived, are weird, sometimes tragic, figures.