10 BURNING QUESTIONS ABOUT MACBETH’S 3 WITCHES

The three witches reveal strange prophecies to Macbeth, prompting him to commit terrible crimes. We caught up with writer and Shakespeare buff Andy McLean to find out more about this unholy trinity.

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23.10.2026

Okay, first up: who exactly are these three characters?
According to Shakespeare’s stage directions, they are “witches”. According to the characters in the play, they are “weird sisters”. In director Peter Evans’ 2026 production, the three characters appear to be at a séance. So they’re somewhere between the living and the dead. Banquo says the trio “look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth / And yet are on’t” – which sounds about right!

Hang on. So, are the witches real?
Yes. No. Maybe.

Huh?
Well, they seem real to Macbeth and Banquo. But those two are the only characters in the play who see the witches. So it’s possible the witches are a shared hallucination – revealing the two men’s darkest ambitions. Shakespeare leaves that up to our imagination. Speaking of which, we – the audience – do see the witches. They’re definitely real to us! But then again, they’re actors. So the witches are imaginary to us too, aren’t they.

Okay, but we at least know that they’re female, don’t we…
Nope. We don’t even know that for sure. Banquo expresses his doubt when he refers to them having beards. And in Shakespeare’s day, the actors playing the witches would have been men anyway. So maybe they’re female, maybe they aren’t.

Why can’t you give us a straight answer to any of these questions?
It’s disconcerting isn’t it. Which is exactly what Shakespeare intended. All the uncertainty makes the witches extra creepy. And their ambiguity was also a smart diplomatic move by the playwright.

How so?
Historians think Shakespeare started writing Macbeth soon after the Gunpowder Plot – which nearly blew King James I of England to smithereens. The foiled plan to kill the monarch was cooked up by Catholic rebels who, it was claimed, were very fond of “equivocation”. That is: speaking ambiguously to avoid revealing the truth.

Which is what the witches do all the time!
Exactly. The witches’ prophesies are full of equivocation. They say one thing but mean another. So Macbeth can be seen as a cautionary tale about dabbling in this. Plus, James was Scottish. So it’s also a play about the dangers of killing a Scottish King. Subtext: Don’t do it!

So Shakespeare was sucking up to the boss?
Well yes. But no judgement here. Back then, playwriting was a risky business. If monarchs thought your work was treasonous, they could have you tortured or put to death. Plus, James literally sponsored Shakespeare’s acting company. 
So there were plenty of reasons why Shakespeare delivered what his audience (i.e. James!) wanted. Shakespeare would also have known that the King was obsessed with witchcraft, ghosts, and necromancy (predicting the future by communicating with the dead). James even wrote his own books about it, the Daemonologie trilogy.  

Sounds like a horror movie franchise.
Oh, it’s way scarier than that. Imagine the leader of a world superpower believing a bunch of wild conspiracy theories.

Hmmm, that would never happen today. What did King James actually believe in?
Demonic possession, black magic, evil spirits, the list goes on. He was convinced that witches had conjured up a violent storm to try and kill him at sea. And he enthusiastically endorsed witch hunting and witch trials. 
It’s fair to say that, by the time Shakespeare’s audiences walked into the theatre to see Macbeth, they were already petrified of witches.

No wonder. And then there’s the way the witches speak. All that creepy gibberish about severed thumbs, dragon scales, and killing swine.
Creepy yes. But it’s not gibberish. The witches choose their words deliberately to confuse us and Macbeth. By speaking in riddles, they trick him into making a series of grave mistakes.

Can the witches see into the future?
Again, Shakespeare leaves that up to our imaginations. The witches certainly seem to know more about what’s going on in the story than anybody else does.
To begin with, Macbeth and Banquo try and laugh it all off, dismissing the witches as shonky fortune tellers. But then the witches’ first prediction [Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor] comes true. And suddenly Macbeth is a believer. By the time he sees them next, he’s hanging on their every word.

Do they have the power to actually control the future?
It’s possible that the witches are “puppeteers” directing the events, yes. If that’s the case, then that raises questions about fate and free will. After committing their crimes, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are racked with guilt, but maybe they’re just pawns in the witches’ game. We don’t know for sure.

Is there anything we do know for sure about the witches?
They’re a pivotal part of this play. Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, and there’s no subplot – when the witches appear at the very start of the play, they set the tone for everything that follows. And only we, the audience, see what they’re up to. So in a way, we’re all witches too.

Double, double, toil and trouble…
See? Now you get the picture.

Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth arrives at the Sydney Opera House on 18 November, playing until 6 December. 

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