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What Did “Weird” Mean to Shakespeare? The Strange History of Macbeth’s Weird Sisters
01/12/2026
What Did “Weird” Mean to Shakespeare? The Strange History of Macbeth’s Weird Sisters
When Shakespeare called the sisters in Macbeth “weird,” he did not mean what we mean by the word today. In early modern England, “weird” carried deep associations with fate, prophecy, and supernatural power—ideas rooted in classical mythology, medieval folklore, and Renaissance belief. In this episode of That Shakespeare Life, we explore what “weird” really meant in the 16th and early 17th centuries, and how that meaning reshapes our understanding of one of Shakespeare’s most famous groups of characters. Joining me are Dr. Anne-Maree Wicks and Professor Laurie Johnson, co-authors of Weird Shakespeare: The Weird Sisters and Macbeth, whose research traces the shifting language, textual history, and performance traditions surrounding Macbeth’s enigmatic sisters. Together, we examine why Shakespeare never actually uses the phrase “weird sisters” in the play itself, how early spellings like weyward complicate modern interpretations, and when editors began standardizing the word as “weird.” We also explore whether these figures may originally have been understood as fairies or nymphs rather than witches—and how later historical events, including witch trials and changing beliefs about the supernatural, shaped how audiences came to see them. This conversation invites us to step back into Shakespeare’s world, where language was fluid, meanings were unstable, and the boundary between fate, folklore, and fear was anything but clear.
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