In art Drawings contained in ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', one of the sources Shakespeare used when creating the characters, portray them as members of the upper class. They are wearing elaborate dresses and hairstyles and appear to be noblewomen as Macbeth and Banquo approach. Shakespeare seems to have diverted quite a bit from this image, making the witches (as Banquo says): The Three Witches of
Macbeth have inspired several painters over the years who have sought to capture the supernatural darkness surrounding Macbeth's encounters with them. For example, by the 18th century, belief in witches had waned in the United Kingdom. Such things were thought to be the simple stories of foreigners, farmers, and superstitious Catholics. However art depicting supernatural subjects was very popular.
John Runciman, as one of the first artists to use Shakespearean characters in his work, created an ink-on-paper drawing entitled
The Three Witches in 1767–1768. In it, three ancient figures are shown in close consultation, their heads together and their bodies unshown. Runciman's brother created another drawing of the witches called
The Witches show Macbeth The Apparitions painted circa 1771–1772, portraying Macbeth's reaction to the power of the witches' conjured vision. Both brothers' work influenced many later artists by removing the characters from the familiar theatrical setting and placing them in the world of the story. 's 1783 painting '' by
John Martin, 1820. Martin depicts the meeting on the heath as a
Romantic landscape
Henry Fuseli would later create one of the more famous portrayals of the Three Witches in 1783, entitled
The Weird Sisters or The Three Witches. In it, the witches are lined up and dramatically pointing at something all at once, their faces in profile. This painting was parodied by
James Gillray in 1791 in
Weird Sisters; Ministers of Darkness; Minions of the Moon. Three figures are lined up with their faces in profile in a way similar to Fuseli's painting. However, the three figures are recognisable as
Lord Dundas (the
home secretary at the time),
William Pitt (prime minister), and
Lord Thurlow (
Lord Chancellor). The three of them are facing a moon, which contains the profiled faces of
George III and
Queen Charlotte. The drawing is intended to highlight the insanity of King George and the unusual alliance of the three politicians. but only one is regularly performed today. This is
Macbeth, composed by
Giuseppe Verdi to a
libretto by
Francesco Maria Piave and premièred in
Florence in 1847. In the opera, the Three Witches became a chorus of at least eighteen singers, divided into three groups. Each group enters separately at the start of the opera for the scene with Macbeth and Banquo; after the men's departure, they have a chorus of triumph which does not derive from Shakespeare. They reappear in Act 3, when they conjure up the three apparitions and the procession of kings. When Verdi revised the opera for performance in Paris in 1865, he added a ballet (rarely performed nowadays) to this scene. In it, Hecate, a non-dancing character, mimes instructions to the witches before a final dance and Macbeth's arrival. In
Henry Purcell's opera
Dido and Aeneas with libretto by
Nahum Tate, the Sorceress addresses the two Enchantresses as "Wayward Sisters," identifying the three of them with the fates, as well as with the malevolent witches of Shakespeare's
Macbeth.
In literature In
Dracula, three vampire women who live in Dracula's castle are often dubbed the "Weird Sisters" by Jonathan Harker and van Helsing, though it is unknown if
Bram Stoker intended them to be intentionally quoting Shakespeare. Most media these days just refer to them as the
Brides of Dracula, likely to differentiate the characters. In
Wyrd Sisters, a
Discworld fantasy novel by
Terry Pratchett these three witches and the
Globe Theater, now named "The Dysk", are featured.
In film ' controversial
1948 film adaptation Orson Welles created a film version of the play in 1948, sometimes called the
Übermensch Macbeth, which altered the witches' roles by having them create a
voodoo doll of Macbeth in the first scene. Critics take this as a sign that they control his actions completely throughout the film. Their voices are heard, but their faces are never seen, and they carry
forked staves as dark parallels to the Celtic cross. Welles' voiceover in the prologue calls them "agents of chaos, priests of hell and magic". At the end of the film, when their work with Macbeth is finished, they cut off the head of his voodoo doll.
Throne of Blood, a Japanese version filmed in 1958 by
Akira Kurosawa, replaces the Three Witches with the Forest Spirit, an old hag who sits at her spinning wheel, symbolically entrapping Macbeth's equivalent, Washizu, in the web of his own ambition. She lives outside "The Castle of the Spider's Web", another reference to Macbeth's entanglement in her trap.
Scotland, PA, a 2001 parody film directed by
Billy Morrissette, sets the play in a restaurant in 1970s
Pennsylvania. The witches are replaced by three
hippies who give Joe McBeth drug-induced suggestions and prophecies throughout the film using a
Magic 8 Ball. After McBeth has killed his boss, Norm Duncan, one of them suggests, "I've got it! Mac should kill McDuff's entire family!" Another hippie sarcastically responds, "Oh, that'll work! Maybe a thousand years ago. You can't go around killing everybody." In
Joel Coen's 2021 film
The Tragedy of Macbeth, British actress
Kathryn Hunter plays all three witches. Though mostly depicted as
three personalities inside a single body, there are several instances where the witch divides into three distinct figures. Hunter worked extensively with Coen to develop a physicality for the witches, describing them as intermediate forms, in between human women and
crows (crows are also frequently shown flying through scenes in the film).
In computer games In the computer game
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), the
Three Crones of Crookback Bog make an appearance, referred to as the "ladies of the wood" or "the good ladies", called Whispess, Brewess and Weavess. Portrayed as old, grossly deformed women who wield ancient, powerful magic, they are malicious characters, able to shapeshift (among others, into a flock of crows), and pose challenges to the game's protagonists. Within the first half of the game, they confront the titular figure with a prophecy about his ill fate, hinting at the outcome of the game if the player fails at the overarching quest. ==Influence==