OOOOH! Witchcraft!

Who doesn't love a scary story from time to time? Shakespeare has a way of incorporating scary characters in most of his plays, comedies and tragedies, keeping his readers entertained as well as on the edge of their seats. There are ghosts appearing in both Hamlet and Macbeth, dark fairies and a crazy, scary little guy named Puck in A Mid Summer's Night's Dream, and Caliban, the deformed slave, along with many, many spirits are found in the Tempest. How much fun is that! But, for me, the Weird Sisters in Macbeth are my favorite scary and chilling characters of all the Shakespearean plays. How many times did I repeat "Double, Double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble," as a child when playing witches or on Halloween fifty some years ago saying over and over, "Something wicked this way comes," having absolutely no idea where those phrases came from or when I first heard them said? Shakespeare had not only added brightly colored phrases from his ingenious plays to the English Language, but caused a small child to embrace and add vivid imagery to her simple speech! Thank you, Shakespeare, where ever you are, for that. .........Linda