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DATELINE Elgin, Moray\u2014<\/strong>King Macbeth released a new campaign ad today, condemning his political opponents for taking his words out of context.<\/p>\n
In the ad, he says, \u2018When my opponents quote me as saying, <\/p>\n
\u201cI am in blood
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Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more,
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Returning were as tedious as go o’er.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018They are willfully misinterpreting the plain meaning of my words. Rather than admitting that I was guilty of killing King Duncan, I was talking about our corporate guilt, and the culture of violence which\u2014sadly\u2014prevails in contemporary Scotland, and which my opponents in fact encourage when they oppose my sensible and moderate spear control laws.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thinking about Macbeth today.<\/strong> I\u2019ve always liked the play, even before I realized it was set in the Viking Age, and peripherally in the Viking world. I could put Macbeth in one of my Erling novels if I wanted to. They were contemporaries, though Macbeth was considerably younger.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re likely aware that Shakespeare\u2019s play is a complete libel. Shakespeare was writing under King James I, who believed himself a descendent of Banquo. Which explains all the business with the witches telling Banquo he would \u201cget kings\u201d without himself becoming one.<\/p>\n
The real Macbeth was a popular and successful king, almost to the end. He killed King Duncan (who was not an old man but a young one), not in bed, but honorably in battle. Contemporary accounts describe him as both \u201cred\u201d and \u201cgolden-haired.\u201d Very likely, I suppose, he was strawberry blond. He was confident enough in the security of his throne to make a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050, during which he is reported to have given money to the poor \u201cas if it were seed.” <\/p>\n
A fascinating theory about Macbeth was advanced by the late novelist Dame Dorothy Dunnett in her novel King Hereafter<\/a><\/i>. Dame Dorothy reported that she set out to write a sympathetic novel about Macbeth but couldn\u2019t make the chronology work\u2014until she hit on the idea of treating Macbeth and Jarl Thorfinn the Mighty of Orkney (a significant character in the sagas) as the same man. Her theory was that Macbeth\u2019s birth name was Thorfinn, and he ruled Orkney under that name, but that his baptismal name was Macbeth, and he ruled in Scotland that way.<\/p>\n
As far as I know, she convinced not one professional historian of this scenario.<\/p>\n
The fatal weakness of the theory, in my view, is that the Orkneyinga Saga states very clearly that Jarl Thorfinn died in bed, while we know that Macbeth died in battle. I can imagine a saga writer making up a warrior\u2019s death for a chieftain who actually died a \u201cstraw death,\u201d but I can\u2019t imagine him prevaricating in the opposite direction. Even after the conversion, the Norse took pride in dying with swords in their hands.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DATELINE Elgin, Moray\u2014King Macbeth released a new campaign ad today, condemning his political opponents for taking his words out of context. In the ad, he says, \u2018When my opponents quote me as saying, \u201cI am in blood Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.\u201d \u2018They … Continue reading Hurrah for Macbeth!<\/span>