Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotlande and Irelande [Facsimile]
Description:
Macbeth and Banquo Meet the Three Witches. This image was included in the first edition of The Chronicles and is interesting because the women hardly resemble to the three wicked sisters as popularly portrayed. Here, they appear to be more or less ordinary village women, perhaps well-to-do, judging by their attire. It is only later that the tradition of presenting them as ugly old crones would establish itself. Many contemporary productions of Macbeth seek to complicate this traditional approach, though, and feature the three witches as young women, nuns, or nurses, in a possible return to the representation of evil masking as the mundane and ordinary.