end-rime, runs a(
symbol characters) through the Witches' spell-song in Act iv, scene 1. This feature in Shakspeare appears to me to merit closer investigation; all the more so because a less regular alliteration, but still a marked one, is found in not a few passages of a number of his plays. Only one further instance of the systematic employment of alliteration may here be noted in passing. It is in Ariel's songs in the Tempest, Act i, scene 2. Schlegel and Tieck evidently did not observe this alliterative peculiarity. Their otherwise excellent translation does not render it, except so far as the obvious similarity of certain English and German words involuntarily made them do so. But in the notes to their version of Macbeth the character of the Weird Sisters is also misunderstood, though Warburton is referred to, who had already suggested their derivations from the Valkyrs or Norns.
It is an error to say that the Witches in Macbeth "are never called witches" (compare Act i, scene 3: "'Give me!' quoth I. 'A-roint thee, witch! ' the rump-fed ronyon cries "). However, their designation as Weird Sisters fully settles the case of their Germanic origin.
This name "Weird" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Norn Wyrd (Sax. Wurth; 0. H. Ger. Wurd; Norse, Urd), who represents the Past, as her very name shows. Wurd is die Gewordene — the "Has Been," or rather the "Has Become," if one could say so in English.
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In Shakspeare the Witches are three in number—even as in Norse, German, as well as in Keltic and other mythologies. Urd, properly speaking, is the Past. Skuld is the Future, or "That Which shall Be." Verdandi, usually translated as the Present, has an even deeper meaning. Her name is not to be derived from vera (to be), but from verda (Ger. icerden). This verb, which has a mixed meaning of "to be," "to become," or to "grow," has been lost in English. Verdandi is, therefore, not merely a representative of present Being, but of the process of Growing, or of Evolution—which gives her figure a profounder aspect. Indeed, there is generally more significance in mythological tales than those imagine who look upon them chiefly as a barren play of fancy.
Incidentally it may be remarked that, though Shakspeare's Weird Sisters are three in number—corresponding to Urd, Verdandi and Skuld—German and Northern mythology and folk-lore occasionally speak of twelve or seven of them. In the German tale of Dorn-