turis malorum Dœmonum (1597), gives under the heading of "Prophecies of devils or evil spirits," the following from Cardanus' De Rerum Varietate, lib. 16, cap. 93:—
"Machabæus (i.e., Macbeth) was in fear, being warned by soothsayers. And a prophetess—fatidica mulier—foretold that he would not be slain by a hand born of woman, nor conquered till the wood of Birnen should come to the fortress of Donusin nam, not far from where he was. Yet before he was conquered the wood of Birnen came thither, being cut down and carried, so that it surrounded the fortress. And he was finally slain by Magduffus, who was not born but cut from his mother's belly."
Cardanus took the story from Hector Boethius, who simply states that the prophecy was uttered by three women with unusual faces—tres mulieres insolita faciæ. Boethius, who was Shakespeare's authority, evidently regarded them as common witches. The same Boethius (Lib. 2, Hist. Scotorum) tells us that Duffus, King of the Scots, had a mistress—cujus mater venefica erat—whose mother was a poisoning or malicious witch, that is, of the lowest and vilest type. There are a hundred stories in the Norse sagas and chronicles which plainly show that Shakespeare had much more reason to make his prophetesses vulgar witches than Valkyries. And it is certainly absurd to accuse him of stripping from certain characters a furchtbaren Grazie, or terrible grace, which he certainly did not find in his originals. So far from degrading these originals, the poet actually elevated them, by bestowing that terrible grace, and refining them above the witches of his own time.—Translator.
