One of the three may be defeated...

Oh the joy... could it be...  Such is the news of the possible demise of one the three "weird sisters". Such a plague they are to progress, community, innovation, belief, and faith... to name a few. 

Oh but you can't be rid of them permanently. They resurface here and there like roaches in the night, like rats in the sewers. Their wretched presence is a mist of decaying stench that lingers far after their physical manifestation has drifted from your vision. Though their features change their vile spewing easily recognizable, as the air becomes unnaturally thin and difficult to breathe, as the days extend unbearably long and difficult to live.  The malevolent influence spreads like a disease.


In William Shakespeare's play Macbeth (c.1603-1607). The "three witches" or "weird sisters" are characters serving as prophets who hail the general Macbeth early in the play with predictions of his rise as king. Upon committing regicide and taking the throne of Scotland, Macbeth hears the trio deliver ambiguous prophecies threatening his downfall. 

The witches' dark and contradictory natures, their "filthy" trappings and activities, as well as their dealings with the supernatural all set an ominous tone for the play.The three witches represent darkness, chaos, and conflict, while their role is as agents and witnesses. Their presence communicates treason and impending doom. 

During Shakespeare's day, witches were seen as worse than rebels, "the most notorious traitor and rebel that can be." They were not only political traitors, but also spiritual traitors as well. Much of the confusion that springs from them comes from their ability to straddle the play's borders between reality and the supernatural. They are so deeply entrenched in both worlds that it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they are merely its agents. They defy logic, not being subject to the rules of the real world.


The witches' lines in the first act: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air" are often said to set the tone for the remainder of the play by establishing a sense of moral confusion. Indeed, the play is filled with situations in which evil is depicted as good, while good is rendered evil. The line "Double, double toil and trouble," often sensationalized to a point that it loses meaning, communicates the witches' intent clearly: they seek only to increase trouble for the mortals around them.