Search: witching hour
Why: Tilda Swinton says it in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Answer: A time of night when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to be at their most powerful, and black magic at its most effective. The term may refer to midnight or to any other late hour.
The earliest known use of "the witching hour" is in Shelley's 1831 edition of Frankenstein:
Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by before we retired to rest.However, in Hamlet (c. 1600), Shakespeare uses a similar phrase:
- Tis now the very witching time of night,
- When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
- Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
- And do such bitter business as the day
- Would quake to look on.
The More You Know: The "devil's hour" is 3 AM exactly. This may be because:
- Most deaths occur between 3 and 5 in the morning, when the body and immune system are at their weakest
- This is when Jesus died on the cross
- Jesus rose from the grave at 3 PM, so 3 AM - being the opposite - is for the devil
- This is when the least amount of light exists
