Forres’ most famous resident never lived in a sprawling impenetrable castle; never met three witches on a windswept heath, and almost certainly wasn’t the murdering tyrant Shakespeare made him out to be.
That hasn’t stopped Forres folk from embracing the town’s starring role in one of literature’s darkest tragedies. Although, it has to be said, you could easily pass through Forres without ever realising there was ever a connection.
So read on, because the real story turns out to be just as compelling as the fiction, and a lot stranger.
A Royal Burgh with deep roots
Long before Shakespeare ever put quill to paper, Forres was already somewhere worth knowing about. The town sits on the shoulder of Cluny Hill, and its history stretches back far enough that the Roman geographer Ptolemy may have marked a settlement here – recorded as “Varis” – on his maps of ancient Britain.
Archaeological digs on Cluny Hill itself have turned up evidence of a hillfort dating to somewhere between 800 and 350 BC, confirming that people were choosing this particular hill for its views and its defences a very long time before anyone had written a word of English drama.
By around 900 AD, Forres had its own Royal castle, built at the west end of what’s now the High Street on a mound that still bears the name “Castlehill” today, even though the stonework itself vanished centuries ago. Forres became one of Scotland’s first Royal Burghs in 1153, lost that status in 1312, and had it restored in 1496 by charter of James IV — the town’s medieval layout, with its long narrow plots running at right angles off the High Street, still traces that history if you know where to look.
Forres Factoid: Look out for the town centre cafe bar named 1496 after this event!
This was never a backwater. Forres held a position as a market centre and royal seat in the old Pictish kingdom of Fortriu, trading along the coast and, plausibly, across the North Sea to Scandinavia. That prominence is part of why an 11th-century Scottish king ended up with such strong associations to this particular patch of Moray in the first place.
The real Macbeth
Here’s where the play and the history start to properly diverge. Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a murderer slaying his way to the throne and is consumed by guilt and ambition.
The actual Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, born around 1005 AD, was Mormaer (essentially a regional ruler) of Moray, and he became King of Alba (Scotland) in 1040 after defeating Duncan I in battle near Pitgaveny, close to Elgin, rather than murdering him in his bed as the play depicts.
Macbeth then ruled for seventeen years – a notably long and, by the standards of the era, stable reign – during which he even felt secure enough to travel to Rome on pilgrimage in 1050.
Forres was very much his territory. Chronicles describe him ruling Moray from here, and it’s this genuine geographical connection – not any documented meeting with supernatural forces – that gave Shakespeare’s source material its setting.
The playwright was working essentially from Holinshed’s Chronicles, a 1587 history that itself blended fact, legend, and no small amount of invention, folding in a separate historical episode (the murder of King Duff at Forres, generations earlier, supposedly abetted by a scheming noblewoman) to help build the character of Lady Macbeth.
Shakespeare compressed timelines, invented motives, and turned a competent monarch into propaganda flattering his own patron, James VI and I, who claimed descent from Banquo. It made for magnificent theatre. It was not history.
Macbeth’s Hillock and the witches who never were
If there’s one place that captures the gap between legend and record, it’s Macbeth’s Hillock, a mound about five miles from town near Brodie, traditionally identified as the “Blasted Heath” where the three witches hailed Macbeth with their prophecies.
It’s a lovely, atmospheric spot — and there is no evidence whatsoever that any such meeting happened, largely because the witches themselves are a literary device with roots in Holinshed, in King James’s own writings on witchcraft, and in older mythological figures like the Norse Norns and the Greek Fates, rather than participants in a real historical event.
Forres does have a genuine, and much darker, connection to witch trials. During the Restoration-era witch hunts of 1662–63, two women, Isobel Elder and Isabel Simpson, were tried and burned at Forres – real victims of a real persecution, examined at the time by Alexander Brodie of Brodie. Local tradition has long associated the town’s ‘Witches Stone’ with this era, even though, tellingly, the more romantic legend attached to the stone (of a witch rolled downhill in a barrel) has largely displaced the memory of the actual women who died.
It’s worth pausing on that when you visit: the folklore is fun, but the real history underneath it is sobering.
Sueno’s Stone: the town’s true ancient marvel
If Macbeth’s Hillock is where legend outpaces fact, Sueno’s Stone is the opposite – a genuinely staggering piece of history that needs no embellishment. Standing around 6.5 metres tall and weighing several tonnes, it’s the tallest Pictish carved stone in Scotland, carved from local red sandstone somewhere in the 9th or 10th century.
However, local legend connects the ancient to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, claiming it is the crossroads where he met the three witches. Folklore holds that the witches’ souls are imprisoned inside the stone, and should it ever break, they will be released.
One face bears an elaborate ring-headed cross; the other is divided into panels depicting a large and still-unidentified battle, complete with ranks of infantry, cavalry, and grim scenes of execution.
Nobody is entirely sure which battle it commemorates or who commissioned it — theories range from a Pictish-Gaelic conflict to a clash involving Viking raiders — and that unresolved mystery is arguably more haunting than any fictional witch.
The stone has stood in roughly the same spot since long before anyone thought to write down Macbeth’s story, encased today in glass to protect it from the weather.
Walking the route through both stories
The best way to take all this in is on foot, and Forres rewards a slow wander.
Start in the town centre at the Tolbooth, a striking building on the High Street with a history stretching back some 800 years on the same site, though the current structure dates to 1838 — its clock tower stair leads up to a parapet with views over the rooftops. From there, it’s a very short walk to the Falconer Museum, which has held Macbeth-themed exhibitions drawing on Holinshed’s Chronicles, useful for anyone wanting the historical framing before heading out to the sites themselves.
Unfortunately, the museum is currently closed, but there are moves afoot to re-open by the end of 2026.
Head north-east out of town and you’ll reach the aforementioned Sueno’s Stone, an easy 15–20 minute walk from the town centre.
You’ll pass by the Witches’ Stone, tucked into its own recess in the wall in front of the police station. Legend has it that its removal brings on a curse, so the council built the pavement around it!
There is a network of paths around the town and through Grant Park and Cluny Woods. One such path leads to Nelson’s Tower on top of Cluny Hill — an octagonal monument built in 1806–1812 to commemorate Trafalgar, and, fittingly, built on the site of that ancient hillfort.
It’s a proper climb (96 steps once you’re at the top), but the view across Forres to Findhorn Bay and the Moray Firth is the reward, and volunteers open the tower to the public from April to September.
For something longer, a visit to Brodie Castle, a National Trust for Scotland property with gardens, ponds, and woodland walks that make a pleasant blend of history, horticulture, with plenty to interest all ages. You’ll drive past Macbeth’s Hillock, and you can imagine the scene, very much like Shakespeare did!