What weere the three witches called in macbeth?
They are collectively known as ‘The Weird Sisters’ (I know because my English Professor at university was in an acting troupe that called themselves that after the three witches, which was partly apposite as their first play involved witches, and partly innapropriate as there were only two of them). The Weird Sisters are in turn based either on the rock band made famous by Harry Potter, or the Nordic myth of the ‘norn’; since Shakespeare predates J.K. Rowlings by some years, he was probably more infliuenced by the latter. Their names were Uror, Verodandi and Skuld (this is the version without the Norse accents on some of the letters – sorry!), and they came out of the earth to foretell people’s fates. They fit the story of Macbeth as they are neither good nor bad per se, or rather they are both; it is Macbeth who chooses (egged on by Lady M) to use their prophesy as a spur to action, rather than letting fate take its own course – which is the whole dramatic force of the play. One can a
