Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/415

Rh Othello, in a later scene, says:

The name is the same as that of the bowmen in the Roman army, known as Sagittarii.

The three Gorgons, the sight of whose snaky hairs turned beholders to stone, have a passing mention:

Medusa was mortal; that was proved when Perseus cut off her head. The other two, not having a similar misfortune, were supposed to be immortal.

The Furies are referred to several times by Shakespeare, Até, the goddess of mischief, was connected with them, but they are often treated as something more than monsters, and appear as avengers of wrong.

The Harpy was a monster with the face of a woman and the body of a bird of prey. Prospero says:

Benedick wildly likens Beatrice to a harpy and also to Até.

I have placed the heading of witches here because the subject contains a line of demarcation between supernatural and human beings. The witches of Macbeth (the weird sisters) are uncanny creatures, belonging to the supernatural class, connected with the Scandinavian Norns. The ordinary witch was a human creature in league with the devil. The witches were mostly old ill-favoured women, but some