Much Macbeth

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 158686

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" <catlady at ...> 
wrote:

> Geoff wrote in
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158422>:
> 
> << Just to be pedantic (as ever!), according to my notes, in the
> collected Folio edition of 1623, the witches were variously referred
> to as "wayward" or "weyard". >>
> 
> Fascinating, considering that 'wayward' means 'misbehaving'. I assume
> that Shakespeare believed that Witches were people who had decided to
> serve the Devil, which by Christian ideas is definitely misbehavior! I
> must check the etymologies...
> 
> <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wayward> says: << c.1380
> aphetic shortening of aweiward "turned away," from away + -ward. >>
> 
> <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=weird> says: << O.E. wyrd
> "fate, destiny" (n.), lit. "that which comes," from P.Gmc. *wurthis
> (cf. O.S. wurd, O.H.G. wurt "fate," O.N. urðr "fate, one of the three
> Norns"), from PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," (cf. Ger. werden, O.E.
> weorðan "to become"), from base *wer- "to turn, bend" (see versus).
> For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," cf. phrase turn
> into "become." The modern sense of weird developed from M.E. use of
> weird sisters for the three fates or Norns (in Gmc. mythology), the
> goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were usually portrayed as
> odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth," which led to the
> adj. meaning "odd-looking, uncanny," first recorded 1815. >>
> 
> So, these are two different words that came together, but they both
> started out with '*wert' meaning 'turn'.

Geoff:
Just adding to the linguistic analysis, my dictionary has a little side panel 
on "weird", away from the main etymological definition and says:

"Weird. In Old English weird, then spelled 'wyrd', was a noun meaning 
'destiny, fate' or, in the plural 'the Fates (the three goddesses supposed 
to determine the sourse of human life); it also meant 'an event or occurence'. 
The adjective, first recorded in Middle English, meant 'having the power to 
control destiny' and was used especially in the phrase 'the Weird Sisters', 
originally with reference to the Fates and later to the witches in Shakespeare's 
'Macbeth'. The modern sense 'strange, uncanny' did not develop until the 
early 19th century: it was apparently used first by the poet Shelley."

Interestingly, no reference to 'turn' in those notes.