In Macbeth, how many witches appear in the play?

In Macbeth, three witches appear in the play. Known as the Weird Sisters, they first appear in Act 1, Scene 1, where they agree to meet Macbeth after a battle. In Act 1, Scene 3, they greet Macbeth and Banquo on a Scottish heath and deliver prophecies that shape the tragedy: Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and eventually king, while Banquo will father a line of kings.

The witches return in Act 4, when Macbeth seeks further predictions. They conjure apparitions that give him a dangerously false sense of security, including the warnings to beware Macduff and that no man born of a woman will defeat him. Their words are technically true but deliberately misleading.

Hecate, the queen of witchcraft, is sometimes confused with the three witches, but she is a separate supernatural character. Some productions also portray the witches differently, including versions where one actor plays all three. In Shakespeare's text, however, the canonical group consists of three witches, whose number echoes the three Fates of classical mythology and helps establish the play's atmosphere of prophecy, disorder, and moral ambiguity.