er that the writer was not paying marvellous attention to
the entertainment he professed to describe, or that the player's copy
differed in many essential points from the present text. Not the least
conspicuous of these inconsistencies is the account of the sisters'
greeting of Macbeth just quoted. Subsequently Forman narrates that
Duncan created Macbeth Prince of Cumberland; and that "when Macbeth had
murdered the king, the blood on his hands could not be washed off by
any means, nor from his wife's hands, which handled the bloody daggers
in hiding them, by which means they became both much amazed and
affronted." Such a loose narration cannot be relied upon if the text in
question contains any evidence at all rebutting the conclusion that the
sisters are intended to be "women fairies, or nymphs."

[Footnote 1: See Furness, Variorum, p. 384.]

87. The second piece of evidence is the story of Macbeth as it is
narrated by Holinshed, from which Shakspere derived his material. In
that account we read that "It fortuned as Makbeth and Banquho journied
toward Fores, where the king then laie, they went sporting by the waie
togither without other companie, saue onlie themselues, passing thorough
the woods and fields, when suddenlie in the middest of a laund there met
them three women in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of
elder world, whome when they attentivelie beheld, woondering much at the
sight, the first of them spake and said; 'All haile, Makbeth, thane of
Glammis' (for he had latelie entered into that dignitie and office by
the death of his father Sinell). The second of them said; 'Haile,
Makbeth, thane of Cawder.' But the third said; 'All haile, Makbeth, that
heereafter shall be King of Scotland.' ... Afterwards the common opinion
was that these women were either the weird sisters, that is (as ye would
say) the goddesses of destinie, or else some nymphs or feiries, indued
with knowledge of prophesie by their necromanticall science, because
everiething came to passe as they had spoken."[1] This is all that is
heard of these "goddesses of Destinie" in Holinshed's narrative. Macbeth
is warned to "beware Macduff"[2] by "certeine wizzards, in whose words
he put great confidence;" and the false promises were made to him by "a
certeine witch, whome he had in great trust, (who) had told him that he
should neuer be slaine with man borne of anie woman, nor vanquished till
the wood of Bernane came to the castell of