Folk-lore of Shakespeare

Referring, in the next place, to the numerous scattered notices of witches given by Shakespeare throughout his plays, it is evident that he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with the superstitions connected with the subject, many of which he has described with the most minute accuracy. It appears, then, that although they were supposed to possess extraordinary powers, which they exerted in various ways, yet these were limited, as in the case of Christmas night, when, we are told in “Hamlet” (i. 1), “they have no power to charm.” In spite, too, of their being able to assume the form of any animal at pleasure, the tail was always wanting. In “Macbeth” (i. 3), the first witch says:

“And, like a rat without a tail,I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.”

One distinctive mark, also, of a were-wolf, or human being changed into a wolf, was the absence of a tail. The cat was said to be the form most commonly assumed by the familiar spirits of witches; as, for instance, where the first witch says, “I come, Graymalkin!”59 (i. 1), and further on (iv. 1), “Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.” In German legends and traditions we find frequent notice of witches assuming the form of a cat, and displaying their fiendish character in certain diabolical acts. It was, however, the absence of the tail that only too often was the cause of the witch being detected in her disguised form. There were various other modes of detecting witches: one being “the trial by the stool,” to which an allusion is made in “Troilus and Cressida” (ii. 1), where Ajax says to Thersites,

“Thou stool for a witch!”

– a practice which is thus explained in Grey’s “Notes” (ii. 236): “In one way of trying a witch, they used to place her upon a chair or a stool, with her legs tied cross, that all the weight of her body might rest upon her seat, and by that means, after some time, the circulation of the blood would be much stopped, and her sitting would be as painful as the wooden horse; and she must continue in this pain twenty-four hours, without either sleep or meat; and it was no wonder that, when they were tired out with such an ungodly trial, they would confess themselves many times guilty to free themselves from such torture.”

Again, it was a part of the system of witchcraft that drawing blood from a witch rendered her enchantments ineffectual. Thus, in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 5), Talbot says to the Maid of Orleans:

“I’ll have a bout with thee;Devil or devil’s dam, I’ll conjure thee:Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch.”

An instance of this superstition occurred some years ago in a Cornish village, when a man was summoned before the bench of magistrates and fined, for having assaulted the plaintiff and scratched her with a pin. Indeed, this notion has by no means died out. As recently as the year 1870, a man eighty years of age was fined at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, for scratching with a needle the arm of a young girl. He pleaded that he had “suffered affliction” through her for five years, had had four complaints on him at once, had lost fourteen canaries, and about fifty goldfinches, and that his neighbors told him this was 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 fightAgainst the churches; though the yesty wavesConfound 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 slopeTheir heads to their foundations; though the treasureOf 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 wouldBuy them for money, forcing them to holdWhat time she listed, tie them in a thread,Which ever as the seafarer undidThey rose or scantled, as his sails would driveTo 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 soundWhile 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 meltedAs 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 spendUnto 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 the fat of children digged out of their graves, of the juices of smallage, wolf bane, and cinquefoil, mingled with the meal of fine wheat; but I suppose the soporiferous medicines are likest to do it, which are henbane, hemlock, mandrake, moonshade – or rather nightshade – tobacco, opium, saffron,”65 etc. These witch recipes, which are very numerous, are well illustrated in Shakespeare’s grim caldron scene, in “Macbeth” (iv. 1), where the first witch speaks of

“grease that’s sweatenFrom the murderer’s gibbet.”

We may compare a similar notion given by Apuleius, who, in describing the process used by the witch, Milo’s wife, for transforming herself into a bird, says: “That she cut the lumps of flesh of such as were hanged.”66

Another way by which witches exercise their power was by looking into futurity, as in “Macbeth” (i. 3), where Banquo says to them:

“If you can look into the seeds of time,And say which grain will grow and which will not,Speak then to me.”

Charles Knight, in his biography of Shakespeare, quotes a witch trial, which aptly illustrates the passage above; the case being that of Johnnet Wischert, who was “indicted for passing to the green-growing corn in May, twenty-two years since, or thereby, sitting thereupon tymous in the morning before the sun-rising; and being there found and demanded what she was doing, thus answered, I shall tell thee; I have been piling the blades of the corn. I find it will be a dear year; the blade of the corn grows withersones [contrary to the course of the sun], and when it grows sonegatis about [with the course of the sun], it will be a good, cheap year.”

According to a common notion firmly believed in days gone by, witches were supposed to make waxen figures of those they intended to harm, which they stuck through with pins, or melted before a slow fire. Then, as the figure wasted, so the person it represented was said to waste away also. Thus, in “Macbeth” (i. 3), the first witch says:

“Weary sev’n-nights, nine times nine,Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.”

Referring to the histories of the Duchess of Gloucester and of Jane Shore, who were accused of practising this mode of witchcraft, Shakespeare, in “2 Henry VI.” (i. 2), makes the former address Hume thus:

“What say’st thou, man? hast them as yet conferr’dWith Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch,With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?And will they undertake to do me good?”

She was afterwards, however, accused of consulting witches concerning the mode of compassing the death of her husband’s nephew, Henry VI. It was asserted that “there was found in the possession of herself and accomplices a waxen image of the king, which they melted in a magical manner before a slow fire, with the intention of making Henry’s force and vigor waste away by like insensible degrees.”

A similar charge was brought against Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV., by Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Thus, in “King Richard III.” (iii. 4), Gloucester asks Hastings:

“I pray you all, tell me what they deserveThat do conspire my death with devilish plotsOf damned witchcraft, and that have prevail’dUpon my body with their hellish charms?”

And he then further adds:

“Look how I am bewitch’d; behold mine armIs, like a blasted sapling, wither’d up:And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.”

This superstition is further alluded to in “King John” (v. 4) by Melun, who, wounded, says:

“Have I not hideous death within my view,Retaining but a quantity of life,Which bleeds away, even as a form of waxResolveth from his figure ’gainst the fire?”

And, again, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (ii. 4), Proteus says:

“for now my love is thaw’d;Which, like a waxen image ’gainst a fire,Bears no impression of the thing it was.”67

Images were frequently formed of other materials, and maltreated in some form or other, to produce similar results – a piece of superstition which still prevails to a great extent in the East. Dubois, in his “People of India” (1825), speaks of magicians who make small images in mud or clay, and then write the names of their animosity on the breasts thereof; these are otherwise pierced with thorns or mutilated, “so as to communicate a corresponding injury to the person represented.” They were also said to extract moisture from the body, as in “Macbeth” (i. 3):

“I will drain him dry as hay.”

Referring to the other mischievous acts of witches, Steevens quotes the following from “A Detection of Damnable Driftes Practised by Three Witches, etc., arraigned at Chelmisforde, in Essex, 1579:” “Item – Also she came on a tyme to the house of one Robert Lathburie, who, dislyking her dealyng, sent her home emptie; but presently after her departure his hogges fell sicke and died, to the number of twentie.” Hence in “Macbeth” (i. 3) in reply to the inquiry of the first witch:

“Where hast thou been, sister?”

the second replies:

“Killing swine.”

It appears to have been their practice to destroy the cattle of their neighbors, and the farmers have to this day many ceremonies to secure their cows and other cattle from witchcraft; but they seem to have been most suspected of malice against swine. Harsnet observes how, formerly, “A sow could not be ill of the measles, nor a girl of the sullens, but some old woman was charged with witchcraft.”68

Mr. Henderson, in his “Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties” (1879, p. 182), relates how a few years ago a witch died in the village of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire. She was accused of “overlooking” her neighbors’ pigs, so that her son, if ever betrayed into a quarrel with her, used always to say, before they parted, “Mother, mother, spare my pigs.”

Multiples of three and nine were specially employed by witches, ancient and modern. Thus, in “Macbeth” (i. 3), the witches take hold of hands and dance round in a ring nine times – three rounds for each witch, as a charm for the furtherance of her purposes:69

“Thrice to thine and thrice to mine,And thrice again, to make up nine.Peace! the charm’s wound up.”

The love of witches for odd numbers is further illustrated (iv. 1), where one of them tells how this being the witches’ way of saying four times.

“Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined,”

In Fairfax’s “Tasso” (book xiii. stanza 6) it is said that

“Witchcraft loveth numbers odd.”

This notion is very old, and we may compare the following quotations from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (xiv. 58):

“Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore.”

And, again (vii. 189-191):

“Ter se convertit; ter sumtis flumine crinemIrroravit aquis; ternis ululatibus oraSolvit.”

Vergil, too, in his “Eclogues” (viii. 75), says:

“Numero deus impare gaudet.”

The belief in the luck of odd numbers is noticed by Falstaff in the “Merry Wives of Windsor” (v. 1):

“They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death!”

In “King Lear” (iv. 2) when the Duke of Albany tells Goneril,

“She that herself will sliver and disbranchFrom her material sap, perforce must witherAnd come to deadly use” —

he alludes to the use that witches and enchanters were commonly supposed to make of withered branches in their charms.70

Among other items of witch-lore mentioned by Shakespeare may be noticed the common belief in the intercourse between demons and witches, to which Prospero alludes in the “Tempest” (i. 2):

“Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himselfUpon thy wicked dam, come forth!”

This notion is seriously refuted by Scot in his “Discovery of Witchcraft” (book iv.), where he shows it to be “flat knavery.”

The offspring of a witch was termed “Hag-seed,” and as such is spoken of by Prospero in the “Tempest” (i. 2).

Witches were also in the habit of saying their prayers backwards: a practice to which Hero refers in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1), where, speaking of Beatrice, she says:

“I never yet saw man,How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,But she would spell him backward.”

Familiar spirits71 attending on magicians and witches were always impatient of confinement.72 So in the “Tempest” (i. 2) we find an illustration of this notion in the following dialogue:

“Prospero. What is’t thou canst demand?Ariel. My liberty.Prospero. Before the time be out? No more.”

Lastly, the term “Aroint thee” (“Macbeth,” i. 3), used by the first witch, occurs again in “King Lear” (iii. 4), “Aroint thee, witch, aroint thee.” That aroint is equivalent to “away,” “begone,” seems to be agreed, though its etymology is uncertain.73 “Rynt thee” is used by milkmaids in Cheshire to a cow, when she has been milked, to bid her get out of the way. Ray, in his “Collection of North Country Words” (1768, p. 52), gives “Rynt ye, by your leave, stand handsomely, as rynt you witch, quoth Bessie Locket to her mother. Proverb, Chesh.” Some connect it with the adverb “aroume,” meaning “abroad,” found in Chaucer’s “House of Fame” (book ii. stanza 32):

“That I a-roume was in the field.”

Other derivations are from the Latin averrunco: the Italian rogna, a cutaneous disease, etc.

How thoroughly Shakespeare was acquainted with the system of witchcraft is evident from the preceding pages, in which we have noticed his allusions to most of the prominent forms of this species of superstition. Many other items of witch-lore, however, are referred to by him, mention of which is made in succeeding chapters.74

CHAPTER III

GHOSTS

Few subjects have, from time immemorial, possessed a wider interest than ghosts, and the superstitions associated with them in this and other countries form an extensive collection in folk-lore literature. In Shakespeare’s day, it would seem that the belief in ghosts was specially prevalent, and ghost tales were told by the firelight in nearly every household. The young, as Mr. Goadby, in his “England of Shakespeare,” says (1881, p. 196), “were thus touched by the prevailing superstitions in their most impressionable years. They looked for the incorporeal creatures of whom they had heard, and they were quick to invest any trick of moonbeam shadow with the attributes of the supernatural.” A description of one of these tale-tellings is given in the “Winter’s Tale” (ii. 1):

“Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, nowI am for you again: pray you, sit by us,And tell’s a tale.Mam. Merry or sad shall’t be?Her. As merry as you will.Mam. A sad tale’s best for winter:I have one of sprites and goblins.Her. Let’s have that, good sir.Come on, sit down: Come on, and do your bestTo fright me with your sprites: you’re powerful at it.Mam. There was a man, —Her. Nay, come, sit down; then on.Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard: I will tell it softly;Yond crickets shall not hear it.Her. Come on, then,And give’t me in mine ear.”

The important part which Shakespeare has assigned to the ghost in “Hamlet” has a special value, inasmuch as it illustrates many of the old beliefs current in his day respecting their history and habits. Thus, according to a popular notion, ghosts are generally supposed to assume the exact appearance by which they were usually known when in the material state, even to the smallest detail of their dress. So Horatio tells Hamlet how, when Marcellus and Bernardo were on their watch (i. 2),

“A figure like your father,Arm’d at point, exactly, cap-a-pe,Appears before them, and with solemn marchGoes slow and stately by them.”

Further on, when the ghost appears again, Hamlet addresses it thus:

“What may this mean,That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous.”

In the graphic description of Banquo’s ghost in “Macbeth” (iii. 4), we have a further allusion to the same belief; one, indeed, which is retained at the present day with as much faith as in days of old.

Shakespeare has several allusions to the notion which prevailed in days gone by, of certain persons being able to exorcise or raise spirits. Thus, in “Cymbeline” (iv. 2), Guiderius says over Fidele’s grave:

“No exorciser harm thee.”

In “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 1), Ligarius says:

“Soul of Rome!Brave son, derived from honourable loins!Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured upMy mortified spirit. Now bid me run,And I will strive with things impossible;Yea, get the better of them.”

In “All’s Well that Ends Well” (v. 3) the king says:

“Is there no exorcistBeguiles the truer office of mine eyes?Is’t real that I see?”

This superstition, it may be added, has of late years gained additional notoriety since the so-called spiritualism has attracted the attention and support of the credulous. As learning was considered necessary for an exorcist, the schoolmaster was often employed. Thus, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 4), the schoolmaster Pinch is introduced in this capacity.

Within, indeed, the last fifty years the pedagogue was still a reputed conjurer. In “Hamlet” (i. 1), Marcellus, alluding to the ghost, says:

“Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.”

And in “Much Ado About Nothing” (ii. 1), Benedick says:

“I would to God some scholar would conjure her.”

For the same reason exorcisms were usually practised by the clergy in Latin; and so Toby, in the “Night Walker” of Beaumont and Fletcher (ii. 1), says:

“Let’s call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,And that will daunt the devil.”

It was also necessary that spirits, when evoked, should be questioned quickly, as they were supposed to be impatient of being interrogated. Hence in “Macbeth” (iv. 1) the apparition says:

“Dismiss me. Enough!”

The spirit, likewise, in “2 Henry VI.” (i. 4) utters these words:

“Ask what thou wilt. That I had said and done!”

Spirits were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence till interrogated by the persons to whom they made their special appearance.75 Thus Hamlet, alluding to the appearance of the ghost, asks Horatio (i. 2):

“Did you not speak to it?”

Whereupon he replies:

“My lord, I did;But answer made it none: yet once, methoughtIt lifted up its head and did addressItself to motion, like as it would speak.”

The walking of spirits seems also to have been enjoined by way of penance. The ghost of Hamlet’s father (i. 5) says:

“I am thy father’s spirit,Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,Till the foul crimes done in my days of natureAre burnt and purg’d away.”

And further on (iii. 2) Hamlet exclaims:

“It is a damned ghost that we have seen.”

This superstition is referred to by Spenser in his “Fairy Queen” (book i. canto 2):

“What voice of damned ghost from Limbo lakeOr guileful spright wand’ring in empty ayre,Sends to my doubtful eares these speeches rare?”

According to a universal belief prevalent from the earliest times, it was supposed that ghosts had some particular reason for quitting the mansions of the dead, “such as a desire that their bodies, if unburied, should receive Christian rites of sepulture, that a murderer might be brought to due punishment,” etc.76 On this account Horatio (“Hamlet,” i. 1) invokes the ghost: