The Witching Hour

I've always had a fondness for the phrase "the witching hour" but knew little of it beyond the fact that it referred to the hour between midnight and one a.m. (though apparently Gypsy's refer to it as the hour from one a.m. till two) when bad, magical and/or scary stuff went down. But I didn't know that most people attribute its introduction into the English language (I have the strong desire to write "its introduction into the English lexicon" but do not know if such phrasing would be proper, so I shall move on) was in 1835 by Washington Irving in a short story:

"Two pairs of eyes are watching me now, from the couch and the ledge by the window. Faerieland shines in those eyes. And I must leave you, for it's the witching hour and a full moon is rising. . . ."

Apparently, however Mary Shelly used the phrase first in 1817 in the introduction to Frankenstein:"Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by before we retired to rest."

A variation of the phrase, however, was used even earlier than that, by the Bard himself. That's right, good ole Willy S wrote this in his golden oldy HAMLET:

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.
[Act III, sc. ii]

Know how I know all this stuff?? Wikipedia. That's right, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Check it out for yourself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witching_hour

Is it true and accurate? Maybe, seems pretty accurate. Don't really care, just think its kinda cool information. See, this is how it all went down ...

I was sound asleep tonight, sleeping like a baby - a baby doped up on some hot and steamy THERAFLU. Yeah, seems I have "that cold" that's "going around" the LA Area. (Isn't it great, anytime anyone gets a cold, someone is bound to say "oh, yeah, its been going around" as if this is news, its a cold and/or a flu, both are viral in nature and both are contagious, so yes THEY GO AROUND. And while I may not be a doctor (of medicine, no, of law, perhaps, of love, oh baby you know it ... ok, actually no) I think its safe to assume that at any point in time there are more than just a couple DIFFERENT cold and/or flu viruses actually going around). So as I said, I was sound asleep, until, of course I woke up. Lying in bed, realizing may status of being one of the awoken, I said to myself "wonder what time it is, I bet its 4 a.m." Lucky for me I didn't just have to lay there, wondering, I didn't have to search the heaven's for some night time celestial counterpart to the sun dial, I just had to look to my left and see the clock. What did it say? Well it didn't say anything, its a clock, and its not one of those fancy "I'll announce the time type clock" which I imagine are very helpfull for the blind and people who are too lazy to read. No it didn't say anything, but it told me volumes. OK, not volumes. It read 4:00. Am I psychic? NO. Psychotic, perhaps. You see, I've had a habit lately of waking up at 4 am, for no particular reason. Sometimes I just wake up. Sometimes I have to hit the little wrangler's room. Sometimes I'm hungry. Sometimes, once a month, I transform into a wolf and prowl the countryside looking for victims - ok, maybe I made that up.

This isn't only a recent phenom (abbreviated not to seem cool and hip, but because I'm too tired to spell it correctly, not that I've ever let bad spelling get in my way), I periodically woke up on or about 4 a.m. last year from time to time.

So this time, at 4 a.m., when the clock told me the time while not actually speaking, I said to myself "4 a.m. is my witching hour." This then compelled me to look up the phrase witching hour and then ramble on and on in this blog for you. Your welcome.

I'm going back to bed.