We have been thrilled and enchanted by the weird conversation of the three sisters on the gloomy heath in ancient Scotland:

When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightening, or in rain?
When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won,
That will be ere the set of sun.
Where the place?
Upon the heath
There to meet with Macbeth.1

Later in the play we have the incantation and recipe for the brew which will cast a spell over the Scottish Thane:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew

Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tarter’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangl…