roschen, or the Sleeping Beauty, there are twelve good fays; and a thirteenth, who works the evil spell. Once, in German folk-lore, we meet with but two Sisters of Fate—one of them called Kann, the other Muss. Perhaps these are representatives of man's measure of free will (that which he " can "), and of that which is his inevitable fate—or, that which he " must " do.
Though the word " Norn " has been lost in England and Germany, it is possibly preserved in a German folk-lore ditty, which speaks of three Sisters of Fate as "Nuns." Altogether, German folk-lore is still full of rimes about three Weird Sisters. They are sometimes called Wild Women, or Wise Women, or the Measurers {Metten)—namely, of Fate; or, euphemistically, like the Eumenides, the Advisers of Welfare {Heil-Rdthinnen), reminding us of the counsels given to Macbeth in the apparition scene; or the Quick Judges {Gach-Schepfen). Even as in the Edda, these German fays weave and twist threads or ropes, and attach them to distant parts, thus fixing the weft of Fate. One of these fays is sometimes called Held, and described as black, or as half dark half white—like Hel, the Mistress of the Nether World. That German fay is also called Rachel, clearly a contraction of Rach-Hel, i. e. the Avengeress Hel.
Now, in Macbeth also the Weird Sisters are described as "black."
The coming up of Hekate-with them in the cave-scene might not unfitly be looked upon as a parallel with the German Held, or RachHel, and the Norse Hel; these Teutonic deities being originally Goddesses of Nocturnal Darkness, and of the Nether World, even as Hekate.
In German folk-lore, three Sisters of Fate bear the names of Wilbet, Worbet and Ainbet. Etymologically these names seem to refer to the well-disposed nature of a fay representing the Past; to the warring or v/orrying troubles of the Present; and to the terrors
{Ain = Agin) of the Future. All over southern Germany, from Austria to Alsace and Rhenish Hesse, the three fays are known under various names besides Wilbet, Worbet, and Ainbet—for instance, as Mechtild, Ottilia, and Gertraud; as Irmina, Adela, and Chlothildis, and so forth. The fay in the middle of this trio is always a good fay, a white fay—but blind. Her treasure (the very names of Ottilia and Adela point to a treasure) is continually being taken from her by the third fay, a dark and evil one, as well as by the first. This myth has been interpreted as meaning that the Present, being blinded as to its own existence, is continually being encroached upon, robbed as it were, by the dark Future and the Past.
