est of that which remaineth boiled in the
bottome, which they laie up & keep untill occasion serveth to use it.
They put hereinto Eleoselinum, Aconitum, frondes populeas, & Soote."
This is given almost verbatim in Middleton's Witch.

"Rx. Sium, Acarum Vulgare, Pentaphyllon, the bloud of a Flittermouse,
Solanum Somniferum, & oleum."

It would seem that fern seed had the same virtue.--I Hen. IV. II. i.]

[Footnote 4: Scot, book iii. ch. vi. p. 46.]

98. The only vestige of a difficulty, therefore, that remains is the use
of the term "weird sisters" in describing the witches. It is perfectly
clear that Holinshed used these words as a sort of synonym for the
"goddesses of Destinie;" but with such a mass of evidence as has been
produced to show that Shakspere elected to introduce witches in the
place of the Norns, it surely would not be unwarrantable to suppose that
he might retain this term as a poetical and not unsuitable description
of the characters to whom it was applied. And this is the less
improbable as it can be shown that both words were at times applied to
witches. As the quotation given subsequently[1] proves, the Scotch
witches were in the habit of speaking of the frequenters of a particular
sabbath as "the sisters;" and in Heywood's "Witches of Lancashire," one
of the characters says about a certain act of supposed witchcraft, "I
remember that some three months since I crossed a wayward woman; one
that I now suspect."[2]

[Footnote 1: sec. 107, p. 114.]

[Footnote 2: Act V. sc. iii.]

99. Here, then, in the very stronghold of the supposed proof of the
Norn-theory, it is possible to extract convincing evidence that the
sisters are intended to be merely witches. It is not surprising that
other portions of the play in which the sisters are mentioned should
confirm this view. Banquo, upon hearing the fulfilment of the prophecy
of the second witch, clearly expresses his opinion of the origin of the
"foreknowledge" he has received, in the exclamation, "What, can the
devil speak true?" For the devil most emphatically spoke through the
witches; but how could he in any sense be said to speak through Norns?
Again, Macbeth informs his wife that on his arrival at Forres, he made
inquiry into the amount of reliance that could be placed in the
utterances of the witches, "and learned by the perfectest report that
they had more in them than mortal knowledge."[1] This would be possible
enough if witches were the subject