ion
thus described in Drayton's "Moon-Calf" (865):

"She could sell winds to any one that would
Buy them for money, forcing them to hold
What time she listed, tie them in a thread,
Which ever as the seafarer undid
They rose or scantled, as his sails would drive
To the same port whereas he would arrive."

So, in "Macbeth" (i. 3):

"_2 Witch._ I'll give thee a wind.
_1 Witch._ Thou'rt kind.
_3 Witch._ And I another."

Singer quotes from Sumner's "Last Will and Testament:"

"In Ireland, and in Denmark both,
Witches for gold will sell a man a wind,
Which, in the corner of a napkin wrapp'd,
Shall blow him safe unto what coast he will."

At one time the Finlanders and Laplanders drove a profitable trade by
the sale of winds. After being paid they knitted three magical knots,
and told the buyer that when he untied the first he would have a good
gale; when the second, a strong wind; and when the third, a severe
tempest.[61]

[61] Olaus Magnus's "History of the Goths," 1638, p. 47. See
note to "The Pirate."

The sieve, as a symbol of the clouds, has been regarded among all
nations of the Aryan stock as the mythical vehicle used by witches,
nightmares, and other elfish beings in their excursions over land and
sea.[62] Thus, the first witch in "Macbeth" (i. 3), referring to the
scoff which she had received from a sailor's wife, says:

"Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail."[63]

[62] See Hardwick's "Traditions and Folk-Lore," pp. 108, 109;
Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," pp. 214, 215.

[63] In Greek, [Greek: hepi rhipous plein], "to go to sea in a
sieve," was a proverbial expression for an enterprise of
extreme hazard or impossible of achievement.--Clark and
Wright's "Notes to Macbeth," 1877, p. 82.

Stories of voyages performed in this way are common enough in Germany.
A man, for instance, going through a corn-field, finds a sieve on the
path, which he takes with him. He does not go far before a young lady
hurries after him, and hunts up and down as if looking for something,
ejaculating all the time, "How my children are crying in England!"
Thereupon the man lays down the sieve, and has hardly done so ere sieve
and lady vanish. In the case of another damsel of the same species,
mentioned by Mr. Kelly, the usual exclamation is thus varied: "My sieve
rim! my sieve