Macbeth
From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project
The Witch Chant
Many modern witches have taken to using what they believe to be an old witch chant, referring to the airts of the compass, yet in reality it finds origins in Macbeth; here follows a comparison:
The witch Chant: <br> "Black spirits and white, <br> Red spirits and grey, <br> Come ye, come ye, come ye that may. <br> Throughout and about, around and around, <br> The circle be drawn, the circle be bound" <br>
Macbeth Version (Act 4, Scene i) <br> Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray; <br> Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may. <br>
However, the trail doesn't end there. This part of the chant wasn't penned by Shakespeare at all, in fact it was originally a part of Thomas Middleton's play "The Witch" (1609-1616), and was added into Macbeth (possibly some-when around 1618) to whet the public's appetite for witch scenes, which were largely missing in the original version of Macbeth. Middleton's version runs as follows:
Excerpt from "The Witch" by Thomas Middleton - A Charm Song About The Vessel (Act 5, Scene 2) <br> HECATE: Black spirits and white, red spirits and grey, <br> Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may. <br> Titty, Tiffin, keep it stiff in. <br> Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky. <br> Robin, you must bob in. <br> Round, around, around, about, about, <br> All ill come running in, all good keep out. <br> FIRST WITCH: Here's the blood of a bat. <br> HECATE: Put in that, oh, put in that. <br> SECOND WITCH: Here's libbard's bane. <br> HECATE: Put in again. <br> FIRST WITCH: The juice of toad, the oil of adder. <br> SECOND WITCH: Those will make the younker madder. <br> HECATE: Put in; there's all, and rid the stench. <br> FIRESTONE: Nay, here's three ounces of the red-hair'd wench. <br> ALL: Round, around, around, about, about, All ill come running in, all good keep out. <br>
Middleton himself seems to have gotten his inspiration in turn from Reginald Scott's "Discoverie of Witchcraft", wherein he says:
"Now, how Brian Darcy's he-spirits and she-spirits, Tittie and Tiffin, Suckin and Pidgin, Liard and Robin, etc., his white spirits and black spirits, gray spirits and red spirits, devil toad and devil lamb, devil's cat and devil's dam, agree wherewithal, or can stand consonant with the word of God, or true philosophy, let heaven and earth judge."
This was made in criticism of Brian Darcy, the justice at the St Osyth witch trials of 1582, for in these witch trials spirits of this colour appear as follows:
"...the striking feature of the trial of St Osyth Witches is the prevalence of familiars or imps in nearly all the accusations & confessions. Alice Hunt had "two spirits, like unto little colts, the one black & the other white, called by the names of Jack & Robin." Her granddaughter said "she kept [them] in a little low earthenware pot with wool, colour(ed) white & black...& that she hath seen her mother to feed them with milk." Elizabeth Bennet confessed to having two "spirits, one called Suckin, being black like a dog, the other called Liard, being red like a lion."" (From Robbins "Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft")
