31 Nights of Horror Hosts | Nights 2, 3, 4 | The Three Witches

The Three Witches--Mildred, Mordred, and Cynthia--first appeared in The Witching Hour #1, cover dated March 1969.  It's 12 o' clock midnight--the Witching Hour--and time to tell stories.  Mordred's tales are filled with thunder and lightning... and strange twisting shapes and creatures... stories of ghosts that walk... Mildred prefers to tell "inhabited object"-type stories... houses with souls, ships with minds of their own... Cynthia, "child of the late 1960s," likes tales of E.S.P. and psychic phenomena... and hypnotism... of strange perversions of science (...SCIENCE!!!).  

And the variety of stories in this horror anthology is part of what has made it enjoyable reading for me.  The witches each tell a tale, and the reader is the judge of which witch is the best storyteller.  As the comics have been released issue by issue on the comixology digital platform during this scary year of 2020, I have bought each of them.  

After The Witching Hour was cancelled, I am told, the Witches moved on to "The Unexpected."  Later, Neil Gaiman incorporated the characters into his Sandman universe as "The Kindly Ones," tapping into the long history of three witches in other tales and traditions.  As for the title they hosted, The Witching Hour returned as a 70 page special, produced in 2013 under the Vertigo imprint, perhaps to keep the trademark of the title up-to-date.

In the panel below, Mordred is on the left, a traditional looking witch with hooked nose, pronounced chin, long hair, and pointy hat.  Mildred is in the center, a plump witch with warts and hairy chin.  Cynthia, is hip, sexy, and blonde, often depicted with cat eyes.     


  

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