The Supernatural in Macbeth Depictions of supernatural activities were used throughout Macbeth, and evidence of this was shown in the appearances of the three witches. In Shakespeare's time, special effects were not used in his plays. Therefore, dramatic performances and suspenseful scenes were the fundamental qualities for making a great play. Shakespeare used the unknown element to create fear in the minds of his audience. By allowing the witches to see the future, it made Macbeth more suspenseful. With their prophecies about Macbeth's future, they intrigue the audience to see if they are right. Witches were a symbol of evil, and Shakespeare uses this fear of the devil to give his plays a strange and haunting effect. Shakespeare also used an evil character who can easily influence the main character in his stories, in this case it was Lady Macbeth. It is essential that Lady Macbeth and the three witches create the plot of Macbeth. Without the witches' powers to predict the future and the evil persuasions of his wife, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth would never have become king. The phrase "strange sisters", used from the 1400s, means "fatal sisters". The word “weird” or in Old English Wyrd was a name meaning Destiny. In Act 1, Scene 3, the three witches describe themselves as harbingers of destiny, and they all introduce themselves to Macbeth and Banquo as "the strange sisters, hand in hand." The appearance that the three witches possess is that of pure evil. At the beginning of the scene, each of the three witches describes their wickedness with pride. For example, when they asked the Second Witch where she was, she replied, "Killing pigs." This statement shows how much witches loved being evil. The public's impression of witches is that they are horribly evil. In Shakespeare's time, witches were believed to have supernatural powers, they could transform into other forms, usually animals. When the First Witch described where she had been, she was referring to crossing the sea in a sieve and becoming a tailless rat. But in a sieve I will sail there, and like a rat without a tail I will sail there. do, I will do, and I will do?. Witches were also considered fortune tellers. The prophecies of the three witches in Macbeth foreshadow later events in the play..