Hover through the fog and filthy air"

This paper examines early modern climatology in order to analyze a correlation between weather, witchcraft, and their combined effects on Shakespeare's Macbeth. Contemporary climactic patterns including hailstorms, tempests, and other unusual phenomena drastically affected not only England but much of Europe. Religious and scientific texts of the period examined links between weather phenomena and witchcraft, suggesting that the weather afflictions were caused by witchcraft. Shakespeare incorporates this suggestion into Macbeth, as well, but takes the connection even further ; the witches in the play not only use their weather magic to afflict Scotland but also control the events of the play.