Ancestral Witches

The Ancestral Witches (alternatively known as the Ancestresses, Three Ancient Witches, Three Primeval Witches, or the Mother of all Witches) are a trio of ancient witches. They are the creatures of absolute evil. They completely destroyed Domino while attempting to acquire the Dragon's Flame.

Overview
They cursed the Sirenix power that Daphne had acquired, causing it to turn against her during the attack on Domino after she saved Bloom, turning her into a bodiless spirit. But thanks to Bloom in the "The End of Tritannus," the Sirenix curse broke. In the French novel adaptation of the Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom, their names are stated to be Belladona, Lysslis, and Tharma, and their birthplace is said to be the realm of Obsidian. The witches are the creators of Valtor and the cause of all the trouble.

Personality
The Ancestral Witches are beings of pure evil and are cruel and pitiless. They love tormenting their enemies and even their allies and use all of them alike as pawns for their own purposes.

Seasons
In Mission at Cloudtower," the Ancestral Witches are mentioned as the dark forces which attacked and destroyed Domino when Faragonda tells the story of the Great Dragon to Bloom.
 * -|Season 1=

In "Bloom's Dark Secret", where they appear in the false vision created by the Trix to terrorize Bloom.



In "The Dragon's Flame", the Trix told Bloom that they were the descendants of the Ancestral Witches and understood the importance of the most powerful source of power of the universe, the Dragon's Flame, on Domino, and went to take control of it. But Daphne, Bloom's sister, sent Bloom to Earth and prevented the Dragon's Flame from falling into the hands of the Ancestresses who killed Daphne in revenge for foiling their plan. The Trix said that they had picked up where their ancestors had left off and that while their ancestors were old and worn out, they were younger and stronger and could, therefore, carry on the Ancestresses' mission.

In "The Mysterious Stone," Faragonda says that they were under the orders of Darkar when they attacked Domino.
 * -|Season 2=

In "The Company of Light," it is revealed that they were the ones who created Valtor after they found a piece of the Dragon's Flame which had mixed with the darkness of the void, and raised him as their own son. Later, when he was old enough, they sent him to conquer all the realms in the Magic Dimension in their name.
 * -|Season 3=

Faragonda tells Bloom that her father, Oritel, and her mother, Marion, had formed the Company of Light in order to fight the Ancestresses, and that both her parents had disappeared on the day of the final battle between the Company of Light and the witches.

In "The Witches' Revelation,"The Ancestresses are seen when the Winx and Faragonda summon them to find out more about their location. Faragonda then reveals to Bloom that she could contact the witches in the place where their essence still lies, the crypt of Cloud Tower. Bloom wants to know if Valtor told the truth when he said that he absorbed her parents into his body. The Ancestral Witches denied this fact, and told Bloom that her parents are in a dimension far, far away that cannot be reached by magic. Unsatisfied, Bloom asks for more information, eager to save her birth parents, but the witches vanish.

In "A New Beginning", the witches appear to Valtor. They are angered that he has wasted the magic knowledge they gave him for his own revenge instead of carrying out his orders to destroy the universe. They told him that the Dragon's Flame was claiming him, and that he had to return to it, much to his protest as he claimed that they were the ones who created him from the flame and that he would remain Valtor forever.

They then turned him into his original demon-like form in such a way that he would never be able to return to his man-like appearance and ordered him to cross the inter-dimensional Portal of Andros to destroy the Magic Dimension. However, they are not successful as Bloom finds and defeats Valtor just before he goes on to obey his mothers' orders.

Before being defeated for good, he tries to convince Bloom to join forces with him against the Ancestresses as a means of regaining her parents and that Oritel and Marion disappeared because of them, to which Bloom does not heed, knowing that he is lying once again.

In "Return to Alfea, when Bloom asked Daphne to tell her where the Sirenix Book is, Daphne told Bloom that using Sirenix would be dangerous for her and that she must not seek to acquire it. Daphne revealed that when the Ancestral Witches attacked Domino, she had acquired Sirenix and was ready to fight them, but the Ancestral Witches had previously placed an evil spell on Sirenix which, when used by Daphne, caused it to turn against her and turned her into a spirit without a body.
 * -|Season 5=

In "Test of Courage," Oritel mentions the Ancestral Witches when he tells the Trix that they are nothing compared to their ancestors.

In "Faraway Reflections," Bloom sees the Ancestral Witches are seen during a flashback. Bloom sees that Daphne was defending the Infinite Ocean with her friend, Politea. Daphne was able to fend them off. However, the witches struck again, casting a spell on both Daphne and Politea, effectively cursing the Sirenix power.

Revenge of the Trix
Bloom encounters a faux book that featured the ancient witches telling Bloom she is a witch. When Bloom returns home to Gardenia, the Trix had followed her and aimed to steal Bloom's power. Before they steal her power, Icy informs Bloom about the Ancient Witches who destroyed Domino.

Movies
They are shown as being prisoners of the realm of Obsidian, where they continually have to bear the presence of Oritel's sword. After Bloom talks with Daphne in her dream after seeing the images of the Ancestal Witches capturing her parents, she regains hope, causing the piece of the Dragon's Flame in the sword to ignite.
 * -|The Secret of the Lost Kingdom=

The heat of the flame becomes so unbearable to them that they send their servant, Mandragora, to find out where the bearer of Dragon's Flame is so that she may snuff out the last of the Dragon's Flame. They transferred their power to her. Mandragora then finds out, and informs the witches that Bloom is alive.

When the Winx enter the realm of Obsidian, Bloom sees the scene of the Company of Light almost defeating the Ancestresses by sucking them into the Obsidian portal, but they grabbed Oritel prompting Marion to enter his sword to be with him forever.

The witches tell Bloom how they enjoyed torturing the inhabitants of Domino who were also imprisoned in Obsidian, and try to convince Bloom to destroy Oritel's sword. They almost succeeded after they showed Bloom a vision of Mandragora in Gardenia, ready to kill her adoptive parents, Mike and Vanessa until Mike was shown playing with a small cat, revealing to Bloom that the image is fake as Mike is allergic to cats.

Regaining hope, Bloom attacked them, but her powers began to weaken the Obsidian started to drain her energy. Just when Bloom began to feel hopeless again, Daphne came to Bloom's aid, combing her spirit with Bloom's physical body. The witches are shocked to see Daphne as they thought they had killed her. As the witches weaken, they call out to their servant, Mandragora, who was subduing the Specialists. The witches and Mandragora combine and fight Bloom and Daphne.

Then, Sky arrives and pulls Oritel's sword from its stone sheath, for even though only a king could raise the sword, he had just become King of Eraklyon. As Bloom is in Mandragora and the witches' grasp, Sky thrusts the sword through the dark entity as Bloom casts an attack on them, liberating planet Domino, completing Bloom's Enchantix, and unknowingly freeing the Ancestral Witches from their prison.


 * -|Magical Adventure=

They send the Trix to steal a magical compass which indicates where what they wish for the most lies and, by using it, they find the Tree of Life at Pixie Village. Using a powerful spell, the Trix cause the tree's negative side to take over the entire tree, causing all the positive energy in the universe to disappear, and leaving only negative energy.

Later, when the Ancestresses discover that there still remained a leaf representing positive energy in the Tree of Life, preventing them from obtaining the ultimate power they were seeking, they send the Trix to Eraklyon to take something from Erendor, Sky's father and King if Eraklyon.

It is later revealed by Sky that when his father was young, he had allied with the Company of Light to fight against the three Ancient Witches, but they threatened to destroy his kingdom if he helped Oritel. Erendor made a deal with the witches in which he vowed not to help Domino, in exchange of which the witches gave him the Ancient Hourglass, containing positive magic from the Tree of Life, which would protect his kingdom from evil.

Later, when he regretted his actions, he went to Havram, a city on Eraklyon which has been haunted by wandering shadows and where nothing, including technology, works properly after the Ancestral Witches destroyed it in order to threaten him. He ended by breaking the hourglass, which caused a sapling of the Tree of Life containing energy from the positive part of Tree of Life to grow.

Under the orders of the Ancestresses, the Trix attack Erendor in trying to find out where the hourglass is. Despite Oritel's efforts to help his friend when he goes to Eraklyon, the witches capture Erendor and fly away.

Meanwhile, the three ancient witches try to harm the Winx by causing the clouds to attack the flying boat they are using to go to Havram. The Winx manage to arrive at the haunted city, but find the Trix, with Icy keeping Erendor hostage, and the Ancestresses there, and have to battle them without any magic, but they receive aid from Oritel.

Bloom and Sky, who were separated from the rest of the group, manage to find the magical sapling which can restore the balance of the Magic Dimension, but they are attacked by Icy, under Belladona's orders, who ends up by hitting the sapling when she was trying to attack Bloom, causing positive magic to be restored in the universe. With the Winx's magic restored and the balance of power shifted, the Ancestral Witches are angered and decide to possess the bodies of the Trix in order to combat the Winx. Using a Believix convergence, the Winx summon the essence of the Dragon's Flame, which extracts the Ancestresses from the Trix and destroys them forever.

Magical Abilities
Since they were the first users of dark arts, as well as creatures of pure darkness, they are the most powerful witches in the entire Magic Dimension. They are able to curse powerful energies like Sirenix, petrify beings, create strong spells, and possess people (due to their spiritual body).

Uses of Magic

 * Bottomless Ice
 * Eternal Darkness
 * Unchained Lightning
 * Darkness Empowerment - They can strengthen dark energy and extinguish positive energy. They gave this to the Trix to extinguish the positive magic from the Tree of Life.
 * [Magical Adventure: Original Version]: "In the name of the mother of all witches, we command you, shadow, rise up, run, darkness, rise up and extinguish the light of all goodness. Concentrate, soak up the tree of light's vital energy. We command you, dark energy, rise up. May the positive energy wither in the great shadow's presence."
 * [Magical Adventure: Nick Dub]: "In the name of the great ancestral witches, we command you, shadow, rise up, run darkness, extinguish the light of goodness. Concentrate, focus the dark magic, shut out the good. Great shadow overcomes the light. We command you, dark energy, rise up, rise up!"

Trivia

 * The Ancestral Witches were probably inspired by the Wicked Fairy Godmother, also known by the name of Carabossa a figure in fairy tales. She is the witch who puts a curse on the princess and makes her fall into her hundred-year sleep in the Sleeping Beauty tale. She is depicted as an old, ugly and bad humpbacked woman.
 * The Ancestral Witches all look like typical folklore and fairy tale witches who are old humpbacked women with crooked noses and hands with sharp, pointy nails.
 * In the flashbacks of Magical Adventure when Sky tells Bloom about the deal his father made with the witches, the Ancestral Witches appear like spirits even then. It is unknown why they appear like that as they still had their bodies at this time, and the Witches themselves told Bloom in Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom that their bodies had perished during their captivity in Obsidian after the destruction of Domino.
 * Another difference is that in the animated series Belladona's spirit is blue, Lysslis's spirit is purple and Tharma's spirit is dark red, in the first movie the Witches' spirits have a blue/purple color while in the second movie they have a reddish color.
 * The Ancestral Witches are linked to each villain from Season 1 to the first movie and are directly or indirectly the source of the problem in each of them, except in Season 2, where their master is the main villain - Lord Darkar.
 * Ironically, had the witches not destroyed Domino, Earth and the Earth Fairies would not have been saved from the Wizards of the Black Circle, as Bloom would not have been sent to Earth, and the Wizards would not have attacked her in the fourth season, causing Faragonda to send the Winx to Earth to save the Earth Fairies.
 * It is also interesting to note that the witches destroyed Domino more or less at the same time that the Wizards were capturing the Earth Fairies, including Morgana, with the exception of Roxy (the last Earth Fairy), and that both Marion's and Morgana's respective kingdoms were both destroyed and both queens were imprisoned into another realm at about the same time.