How the Witches’ Prophecy in Macbeth Relates to Dunsinane

What wood is this before us?”

– Macduff in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Old Tree, Birnam Wood.

Photo by Chris Eilbeck, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

The play title Dunsinane refers to the famous bloody climax of Shakespeare’s horror-show play Macbeth. The character of Macbeth, a bloodthirsty Scottish king (called “the tyrant” in Dunsinane), receives a prophecy from three Witches that he cannot be defeated until “Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come”—that is, until the trees in the forest around Macbeth’s castle stand up and start walking towards the castle walls. Since this seems physically impossible, Macbeth takes the Witches’ prophecy as certainty that he will never be defeated.

What Macbeth doesn’t count on is the ingenuity of his nemesis, Macduff. Macduff allies himself with the English army. In Birnam Wood, outside of Macbeth’s Dunsinane castle, Macduff gives the army tree branches for camouflage, so when Macbeth looks out from Dunsinane castle, the forest seems to move and surround him. Thus, when Macduff’s forces storm the castle, Birnam Wood does in fact come to Dunsinane. Macduff kills Macbeth, and the Witches’ prophecy is finally fulfilled.

Imagine a forest A real forest ”

– W.S. Graham, “Imagine a Forest”