Origins[edit]

The phrase "witching hour" began at least as early as 1775, in the poem "Night, an Ode." by Rev. Matthew West,^[1] though its origins may go further back to 1535 when the Catholic Church prohibited activities during the 3:00 am and 4:00 am timeframe due to emerging fears about witchcraft in Europe.^{[2][dubious – discuss]}

In the Western Christian tradition, the hour between 3:00 am and 4:00 am was considered a period of peak supernatural activity – this time is also referred to as the "Devil's hour" due to it being a mocking inversion of the time in which Jesus supposedly died, which was at 3:00 pm.^{[3][dubious – discuss]}

Time[edit]

There are multiple times that can be considered the witching hour. Some claim the time is between 12:00 am and 1:00 am, while others claim there is increased supernatural activity between sunset and sunrise. The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary identifies midnight as the time when witches are supposedly active.^[4]

During the time in which this term originated, many people had sleeping schedules that meant they were awake during the middle of the night.^[3] Nonetheless, there is psychological literature suggesting that apparitional experiences and sensed presences are most common between the hours of 2:00 am and 4:00 am, corresponding with a 3:00 am peak in the amount of melatonin in the body.^[5]

Physiology[edit]

The witching hour may stem to a human's sleep cycle and circadian rhythm – the body is going through REM sleep at that time, where the heart rate is slower, body temperature reduced, breathing pattern and blood pressure irregular.^[6] Sudden awakening from REM sleep could cause agitation, fear and disorientation in an individual.^[2]

Also, during REM sleep, which usually occurs within the witching hour, unpleasant and frightful sleep disturbances such as parasomnias can be experienced, which include nightmares, rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, night terrors, sleepwalking, homicidal sleepwalking and sleep paralysis.^[7]

Moreover, during the night and well into the witching hour, symptoms of illnesses and conditions such as lung disease, asthma, flu and common cold seem to exacerbate because there is less cortisol in the blood late at night and especially during sleep.^[8] As such, the immune system becomes very active and white blood cells fight infections in the body during sleep, and this would thereby worsen the symptoms of fever, nasal congestion, cough, chills and sweating.^[9][10]

Colloquial usage[edit]

The term may be used colloquially to refer to any period of bad luck, or in which something bad is seen as having a greater likelihood of occurring.^[11][12]

In investing, it is the last hour of stock trading between 3:00 pm (when the U.S. bond market closes) and 4:00 pm EST (when the U.S. stock market closes), a period of above-average volatility.^[13]

The term can also refer to a phenomenon where infants or young children who cry for an extended period of time during the hour (or two) before their bedtime, where they would usually be irritable and unwieldy with no known cause.^[14][15]

To reduce gun violence, curfew hours in Washington D.C. have been in force between 11:00 pm and 12:00 am to lower juvenile gunfire incidents. Influenced by the idea of "witching hour", this occurs between 11:00 pm and 11:59 pm on weekdays and is referred to as the "switching hour".^[16] Furthermore, violent crimes like rape and sexual assault would peak at midnight on average and DUI police incidents would usually tend to occur at around 2:00 am.^[17][18]

ARTIST: 

William Balfour Ker (July 25, 1877 – October 20, 1918) also known simply as Balfour Ker, and sometimes written Balfour-Ker^[1] was a Canadian-American artist whose paintings appeared in popular magazines such as Life and The Delineator, and were widely reproduced in postcards and posters. A declared socialist, some of his most popular work depicts issues of class struggle and poverty.^[2] His work also appeared in advertisements for Liberty bonds and war savings stamps during World War I.

Early life[edit]

William Balfour Ker was born in Dunnville, Ontario, Canada on July 25, 1877.^[3][a] He had Scottish ancestry.^[3] His mother, Lily Florence Bell Ker, was first cousin of the inventor Alexander Graham Bell,^[5] and his father, William Ker, was a Scottish businessman and banker.^[6][7] The family moved to the United States in 1880, where Ker was later naturalised.^[5] He had two brothers who survived him.^[5] Ker was raised in North Yakima, Washington,^[6] and at age 18 studied law at George Washington University and began attending evening classes in illustration.^[4] The Yakima Herald reported that by February 1896 he was a reporter for the Washington, D. C. Daily Post,^[8] and by December 1896 was studying art in Paris.^[9] He ended up as an artist in New York City.^[4]

Career[edit]

Ker painted covers for Life magazine, including Thanksgiving and Christmas issues. Some of his illustrations for Life were published as postcards by the Detroit Publishing Company.^[10]

His political commitment to socialism was often reflected in his art.^[3] His most notable, widely printed and reproduced piece^[12] From the Depths was originally published in the 1906 book The Silent War by John Ames Mitchell.^[2] The illustration depicts:

a lavish social event in a large ballroom attended by the well-to-do; the party is disrupted when a fist erupts through the floor, beneath which are the struggling masses of the less fortunate who provide the foundation support on which the wealthy rest.^[11]

Copies also circulated under the title The Hand of Fate,^[3] and the background of the image includes "Discobolos and Venus of Melos, the two most familiar of all ancient statues, representing the decadent life of luxury."^[12]

Ker clearly intended this painting to inflame class divisions between productive workers and the wealthy upper class, as represented by strong but exploited workers trapped beneath the floor and well-to-do dancers at a society ball... That such a work could be painted, published, and widely discussed suggests that class divisions in the Progressive Era were real and widespread.^[3]

During the First World War, Balfour Ker also designed posters advertising United States government war savings stamps for the United States Treasury.^[13]

Personal life[edit]

Ker was married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Ellen Sigsbee,^[14] a fellow socialist and a feminist,^[3] whose father, Charles D. Sigsbee, had been captain of the USS Maine during the Spanish–American War.^[3] The marriage was conducted against her father's wishes, after an 1898 elopement.^[3] They first lived in Greenwich Village, but after a period working in Paris, the marriage failed^[3] and they divorced in 1910.^[14] Following their divorce, Sigsbee married Anton Otto Fischer.^[15] All three were artists and former students of Howard Pyle.^[15] Ker and Sigsbee had a son, David (1906–1922), who was adopted by Fischer.^[15]

Ker's second wife was Josephine Reeder Phillips, an American model,^[3] whom he married in England in 1914.^[5] They lived there and in France, before returning to the United States.^[5] They had four children, some before they were married.^[5] These included three sons and a daughter, Yosene Balfour Ker, who was a model featured in several paintings by the artist John Sloan,^[16][17] and whose own daughter was the actress Tuesday Weld (born Susan Ker Weld).^[18][19]

Ker died on October 20, 1918,^[20] in New York City,^[1] at the age of 41. Phillips died within a few years, leaving their four children, ranging in age from four to ten years, as orphans.^[5] On discovering that they were in the care of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Newark, New Jersey, Alexander Graham Bell wrote to the society, and to John Adams Kingsbury in April 1922, offering assistance.^[5][21] Ker is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery.^{[citation needed]}