In literature and folklore
In literature one of the earliest references to the witching hour appears in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which Prince Hamlet begins one of his soliloquies:
’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.…
