With a modern literal meaning of "midnight," the term witching hour refers to the time of day when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful and black magic to be most effective. It may be used to refer to any arbitrary time of bad luck or in which something bad has a greater likelihood to occur (e.g., a baby crying, a computer crashing, or stock market volatility).
One of the earliest, if not the first, appearances this term makes is in Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Here, Irving uses "witching hour" and "witching time" interchangeably. Both terms reference midnight, and are used to conjure in readers a sense of supernatural anxiety. 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.
In several of Shakespeare's plays – specifically Macbeth and Julius Caesar – ghosts and other supernatural phenomena take place around midnight, but the term "witching hour" never appears. In the play Hamlet, we hear young Hamlet saying, "'Tis now the very witching time of night."
According to the American horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the term can also refer to the period from midnight to 3am, when a character notes at "3am the devil's hour, as opposed to 3pm, when Jesus was said to have been crucified".
The Witching Hour or "Da Witchin' Houah" is a phrase coined by Mike Francesa, New York Sports radio host, and Brent Musburger on the program The NFL Today. It refers to the period of time on NFL Sundays starting around 2:45 Pm ET until 4:30, or until the 1:00 games have all finished. Da Witchin' Houah is known for many twists and turns and changes in the scores of the games. A common phrase to say during this time is "Hey! Withcin' Houah. Here we go." (See link for full explanation http://shelby.tv/video/youtube/m3HA_kW3J6U/mike-francesa-explains-da-witchin-hour)
Famous quotes containing the words witching and/or hour:
“The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“In mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater:
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve, by sines and tangents straight,
If bread and butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o’ th’ day
The clock doth strike, by algebra.”
—Samuel Butler (1612–1680)