, and that Macbeth
is to be the special object of it; and this is done in as artistic a
manner as is perhaps imaginable. In the first scene they obtain their
information; in the second they utter their prediction. Every minute
detail of these scenes is based upon the broad, recognized facts of
witchcraft.

97. It is also suggested that the power of vanishing from the sight
possessed by the sisters--the power to make themselves air--was not
characteristic of witches. But this is another assertion that would not
have been made, had the authorities upon the subject been investigated
with only slight attention. No feature of the crime of witchcraft is
better attested than this; and the modern witch of story-books is still
represented as riding on a broomstick--a relic of the enchanted rod with
which the devil used to provide his worshippers, upon which to come to
his sabbaths.[1] One of the charges in the indictment against the
notorious Dr. Fian ran thus: "Fylit for suffering himself to be careit
to North Berwik kirk, as if he had bene souchand athoirt [whizzing
above] the eird."[2] Most effectual ointments were prepared for
effecting this method of locomotion, which have been recorded, and are
given below[3] as an illustration of the wild kind of recipes which
Shakspere rendered more grim in his caldron scene. The efficacy of these
ointments is well illustrated by a story narrated by Reginald Scot,
which unfortunately, on account of certain incidents, cannot be given in
his own terse words. The hero of it happened to be staying temporarily
with a friend, and on one occasion found her rubbing her limbs with a
certain preparation, and mumbling the while. After a time she vanished
out of his sight; and he, being curious to investigate the affair,
rubbed himself with the remaining ointment, and almost immediately he
found himself transported a long distance through the air, and
deposited right in the very midst of a witches' sabbath. Naturally
alarmed, he cried out, "'In the name of God, what make I heere?' and
upon those words the whole assemblie vanished awaie."[4]

[Footnote 1: Scot, book iii. ch. iii. p. 43.]

[Footnote 2: Pitcairn, I. ii. 210. Cf. also Ibid. p. 211. Scot, book
iii. ch. vii. p. 51.]

[Footnote 3: "Sundrie receipts and ointments made and used for the
transportation of witches, and other miraculous effects.

"Rx. The fat of yoong children, & seeth it with water in a brazen
vessell, reseruing the thick