Talk:Witching hour

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Anyone else notice that the first paragraph of this article is one meandering run-on sentence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.20.187.106 (talk) 21:26, 4 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

The witching hour is apparently also used to refer to the hour that occurs twice when daylight savings is removed, but I can't find any reference to it outside certain unix command manuals. Is this a common enough expression to include in the article, or just an idiosyncrasy? αγδεε (ε τ c) 11:13, 9 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

While the article states that "The earliest known use of the exact phrasing "the witching hour" is from 1835, in the last line of a short story by Washington Irving", I have in my hand a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein contained in which is a letter composed by Shelley that contains the following line: "Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by, before we retired to rest." This letter was from the introduction to the 1831 edition of the novel and is thusly dated October 15, 1831.

In Shakespeare's "Hamlet", written sometime between 1599 and 1602, prince Hamlet says "Tis now the very witching time of night" in act 3, after watching the play that reenacts his father's murder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.131.193.6 (talk) 02:16, 14 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Would this not change the earliest known use of the phrase? I only discovered this because I searched for the phrase 'witching hour' after reading this introduction and seeking to confirm my belief that the witching hour was midnight.

Ckostovny 07:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

This sentence: "There is little evidence the term has had any practical use prior to this, and that Irving coined the phrase after having grown up around New England and touring areas where the Salem Witch Trials took place." seems to mean to say that Irving coined the phrase but implies the opposite. It needs clarification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.13.171 (talk) 17:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

The poet, John Keats, uses this phrase in his poem "A Prophecy" which is contained in a letter to his brother, George. It was written on October 25, 1818. The poem begins: "Tis the witching hour of night, Orbed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten, Seeming with bright eyes to listen--For what listen they?"

Others beleive the witching hour is at 11pm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.0.67.211 (talk) 23:55, 20 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

In Australia, the 'bewitching hour' is usually thought of as midnight. For example, if someone says "I must finish this before the bewitching hour", the implication is that if it is not finished by midnight, bad things will happen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leshawl (talk • contribs) 23:39, 11 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

The correct time for the witching hour is 3:00am or 3:15am is when the devil is his strongest Purple jewel 12 (talk) 14:23, 24 March 2016 (UTC)Reply

Hey, I was just wondering if 3:15 glop from the Amityville Hopper also is considered a "Farting Hour?" This was the same time when Ronald Dufe murdered his fans in the house, and also the same time where George Klutz kept on waking up and where most of the square dancing activites began to take place.RehmanK786 (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

The first listed ref points to this which has text in it very similar to what's in the current article. Not sure which came first. Matt Deres (talk) 11:16, 21 September 2017 (UTC)Reply

So last year, Witching Hour (disambiguation) was merged with this page and the other page and its history disappeared? Why? The witching hour page before was better in my opinion. Can someone explain to me what happened to the other page? Thanks! 24.150.196.3 (talk) 02:30, 15 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

When and where did this happen, and how often? It's a very vague accusation, and seems excessive even by the standards of witch trials. The source given for this isn't accessible from the UK, so I can't check what it actually says. Iapetus (talk) 09:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

The link to Witch trials in the early modern period is there to provide that information. The source says what the sentence says – that being outside during that time was sometimes used as evidence in witch trials. It does not specify exactly when and where this occurred. It would be great to be able to cite that info, but not being able to does not make "sometimes" a weasel word. The inline template {{vague}} could be justified. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 18:08, 3 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

OK, I've added the ^[vague] tag instead. I can't find anything in Witch trials in the early modern period that says anything about "being outside during that time being used as evidence in witch trials". If it was, I would think it should be added there. Is this Discovery article reliable? I've heard of all sorts of things being used as evidence of witchcraft, but never "being outside in the small hours". Iapetus (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I don't see anything about it either. Swpb, where are you seeing this information? I also tried to search for that Destination America episode and found nothing that matched the title. -- Fyrael (talk) 14:41, 4 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

The link may be dead. If I get time, I'll try to find another source for the statement; if we don't have one in a few days, I'm fine removing it until we do. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 15:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

I want to call into question the following sentence, under section "Origins"

"The association with witches could have been one way in which to shame and persecute women who were believed to go against the status quo.[4]"

Without disputing that the general idea of "witches" may have done precisely this, it's not clear to me that the idea of a "witching hour" could have done so, nor how exactly it would have - how associating a pre-dawn hour with witches would have added to the shaming or persecuting of women. FWIW, the reference (4) does not actually reference the witching hour.

I suspect there is a real idea here that has been somewhat garbled in the sentence above, but unless someone can help it express itself, I recommend this sentence be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.225.219.18 (talk) 17:55, 11 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

I agree with your analysis and have boldly removed the unsupported statement. -- Fyrael (talk) 05:31, 12 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

"time between 3:00 am and 4:00 am."

This is a new invention from Paranormal Activity, the movie. There is no reference to it elsewhere that predates this movie. The witching hour has always been either the hour AFTER midnight, or 11:30 to 12:30. 4AM at some latitudes is literally daylight so daylight isn't very spoopy. But yeah, from my research on the topic besides it now being accepted as a 'fact' because Wikipedia says so (thus a circle of references of journalist articles quoting Wiki as 4am as a source then wiki potentially quoting the journalists) it appears ALL of the 3-4 stuff is directly from Hollywoods imagination nothing else, and solely because the 'paranormal activity' in the first movie was set around that time. 124.190.192.47 (talk) 10:55, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

The origin isn't Paranormal Activity (2007), but it may be an earlier movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) (see https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/exorcismofemilyrose/) – I can't immediately find a solid reference earlier than that for the 3-4am timeframe. —swpb^{T • go beyond • bad idea} 13:29, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Exactly. I grew up (I am 53) referring to midnight as the witching hour. I never heard of the 3am thing until I saw the Emily Rose movie in the theater. Afterwards, it seemed to become ubiquitous in supernatural movies and then ghost hunting TV shows into common usage. Additionally, I remember a DC horror comic of the 1970s called the Witching Hour that explicitly identified the time as midnight. There has obviously been a shift in usage. I think this transition itself would be a fascinating subject of study. 174.106.217.218 (talk) 20:28, 13 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

While he didn’t use the term “witching hour” per se, this concept does appear in Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel, “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” to describe the hour beginning at 3 AM:

”Oh God, midnight’s not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two’s not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there’s hope, for dawn’s just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, three A.M.! Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you’d slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that’s burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead – And wasn’t it true, had he read somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time...” 68.80.15.197 (talk) 05:11, 21 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Used in TV series “King of Queens” Episode Horizontal Hold 2001. 170.205.129.168 (talk) 04:00, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like a trivial reference. Those don't usually bear mentioning. -- Fyrael (talk) 05:09, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suden_hetki describes the wolf moment when from Roman culture a similar phenomenon is described - perhaps this could be added. It does make sense to look at other cultures and origins of topics and not assume they were independently invented in America :) 91.154.169.156 (talk) 08:22, 10 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm quite surprised that there is zero mention of the theory that 3am is supposedly the "devil's hour", as this is the inverse of when Jesus allegedly died at 3pm. I actually thought this was commonly known, and it's certainly the theory that I was told regarding being mindful of demonic activity occurring around 3am, due to the fact that demons like to mock God/Jesus by inverting any symbolism. A quick check on encyclodiea Britannica confirms this as a theory people hold (I can't seem to post the link for some reason) I would be tempted to add this in myself, but just thought I'd run it by in the talk page and see if anybody with authority and the know-how to edit pages and add links would agree to mentioning this? 2A00:23C8:2232:9C00:E961:B817:EA36:B248 (talk) 09:41, 23 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

The conflation of 'the witching hour' with 'the devil's hour' (3am), seems to be due to the movie The Conjuring and has since become a popular and repeated notion in other horror movies and filtered out into popular culture. 80.43.19.47 (talk) 00:02, 11 June 2025 (UTC)Reply