Ancestral Witches

The Ancestral Witches (alternatively known as the Ancestresses, Three Ancient Witches or the Mother of all Witches) are a trio of witches of antiquity. They are the absolute creatures of Evil. They completely destroyed Domino while attempting to acquire the Dragon's Flame Flame. In some dubs, Faragonda said they put a spell on Domino that completely froze it.

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 season 5, in the episode,"End of Tritannus," for her wish that comes with her sirenix transformation, she wished for Daphne to be corporeal again. Some people have wondered what The Ancestral Witches names were. In the French novel adaptation of the first movie, 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.

Overview
Valtor mentioned them as being the "Mothers of all witches" in the third season. It is unknown what is the exact meaning of this title since the Trix are the only witches known to have claimed descent from them, but it may mean that they are the first witches, as Arcadia is the first fairy. Although the Trix have claimed to be descendants of the Ancestresses, the only person the Ancestresses mentioned as being related to them is Valtor, whom they called their "son" when they forced him to assume his original, demon form; this term may be used to mean that they used their power and energy to form him.

All the other witches to have mentioned the Ancestresses in the series usually called them as "their (the Trix's) ancestors". It is possible that the Ancestresses were in fact the first beings to have started using witchcraft and were the very first witches (which could explain their name, the Ancestral Witches), and initiators of witchcraft, therefore making them the mothers of witchcraft.

A proof of this was when Bloom went to Domino in the first season. Her crown tells her that the Ancestral Witches were the first creatures of Evil (Darkar cannot be said to be a creature of Evil as, even if he was born at the beginning of Time, it was stated in the series that he is Evil personified).

This makes them in a sense the mothers of all witches, since they thus become the ones who first began using the magic which all witches use. As stated by the series, usually the person decides which way to choose, that of fairy magic or that of witchcraft (the case of Mirta, in the Rai version). By choosing to become witches they adopt the magic possibly begun by the Ancestresses.

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

More coming soon...

Seasons
The Ancestral Witches are first mentioned as the dark forces which attacked and destroyed Domino when Faragonda tells the story of the Great Dragon to Bloom. They however make their first physical appearance in the series in Bloom's Dark Secret, where they appear in the false vision created by the Trix to terrorize Bloom. It is in this episode that Bloom calls them the "Primeval Witches", while Brandon (Prince Sky) names them as "The Three Evil Ancestors".
 * -|Season 1=



Before "stealing" her powers 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 spoiling everything. 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.

Faragonda and Griffin also mention that they took part, along with Saladin in defeating these ancient witches.

They are again mentioned by Faragonda in the second season as being under the orders of Darkar when they attacked Domino.
 * -|Season 2=

In the third season, 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, and brought him up 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, as also stated by Hagen in the first movie, The Secret of the Lost Kingdom.

Later in the season, when Valtor claims to have absorbed Marion and Oritel in his body, Faragonda tries to contact the Ancestresses and says to Bloom that a part of the essence of the three witches is still present in the Crypt of Cloud Tower, and that they can be contacted from there.

Towards the season finale, they try to use Valtor as a medium to get their revenge for having been imprisoned in Obsidian (then mentioned as limbo) because they were themselves unable to influence the outer world, while still having influence on Valtor since he was their son. They told him that it was his punishment for having wasted his powers in his thirst for revenge, that the Dragon's Flame was claiming him, and that he had to return to it, much to his protests, as he claimed that they were the ones who created him from the Flame and that he would remain Valtor for ever.

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 in fact lying.

When Bloom knew that her parents were alive, she asked the three ancestresses witches where they were. But they did not tell her and just disappear also they live in Cloud Tower's heart where Bloom found them in a secret cave. They were all the cost of trouble of Season 3 due to the fact that they are Valtor's creators.

In Season 5, when Bloom asked Daphne to tell her where the Book of Sirenix is, Daphne told Bloom that using Sirenix would be dangerous for her and that she must not look for 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 herself and turned her into a spirit without a body.
 * -|Season 5=

They are mentioned again by Oritel in Test of Courage, when he tells the Trix that they are nothing compared to their ancestors when they disrupt the ceremony.

Specials
Similar to the events of season one, Bloom encountered 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 did, Icy informed Bloom about the Ancient Witches who destroyed Domino.
 * -|Revenge of the Trix=

Movies
In the first movie, the Ancestresses act as the main villains.
 * -|The Secret of the Lost Kingdom=

They are shown as being the prisoners of the Obsidian Circle, where they continually have to bear the presence of Oritel's sword. After Bloom talks with Daphne in her dream, her hope lights up again, causing the piece of the Dragon's Flame in the sword also to ignite up.

The heat of the Flame becomes so unbearable to them that they send their servant, Mandragora, to find out where the Dragon Flame is. They transferred their power to her. Mandragora then finds out, and informs the witches that Bloom is alive. The witches apparently thought that Bloom was dead since they did not see Daphne sending Bloom to Earth in the flashbacks of the first season, and were unable to force Daphne to reveal anything about her sister.

Valtor may also have lied that he had killed Marion and Oritel's little daughter in an attempt to weaken them by devastating them, as no reason has been given why they used and exhausted all their remaining forces to defeat Valtor and seal him in the Omega Dimension during the last battle with the Company of Light when they thought that their daughters were dead.

When the Winx finally enter the realm of Obsidian, Bloom sees the scene when the Company of Light almost defeated the Ancestresses, and how one of them grabbed Oritel and how Marion entered Oritel's sword before they disappeared in the Obsidian Circle.

The witches tell the Winx how they enjoyed torturing the inhabitants of Domino who were also imprisoned in the Obsidian Dimension, and try to convince Bloom to destroy Oritel's sword. They almost succeeded after they showed Bloom a vision of Mandragora on Gardenia, ready to kill her adoptive parents, Mike and Vanessa, at least until Mike was shown playing with a small Fairy cat.

Bloom then told the witches that Mike is allergic to cats and that their plan had failed, before starting to attack them, almost exhausting her magic powers, the darkness of the realm of Obsidian absorbing her energy. At that moment, Daphne came to Bloom's help but, even together, both their powers were weakened by the darkness around them, and the witches became more powerful when Mandragora arrived to help her mistresses.

In the climax of the movie, the witches possessed Mandragora and tried to kill Bloom and Daphne, had it not been for Sky who, now being the new king of Eraklyon, used Oritel's sword to pierce Mandragora's body as Bloom used all of her Dragon's Flame's power to destroy the evil beings. The witches were defeated, Mandragora was killed, and the realm of Obsidian itself was destroyed, freeing all the inhabitants of Domino, the Specialists, and the Winx.

However, at the end of the movie, the witches were shown together with the Trix, their heirs, meaning that the ancestors and descendants have now allied against the Winx.

They do not appear at all in the fourth season, but they act as the main villains again, together with the Trix, in the second movie.
 * -|Magical Adventure=

They send the Trix to steal a magical compass which indicates its user where what he or she wishes the most lies and, using it, they find the Tree of Life at Pixie Village. Using a powerful spell, the Trix cause the Tree's negative part to take over the whole of it, 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, preventing them from obtaining the Ultimate Power they were seeking, they send the Trix on Eraklyon to take something from Erendor.

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 him of destroying his kingdom if he helped Oritel. Erendor ended by betraying Oritel and made a deal with the witches in which he engaged himself not to help Domino, in exchange of which the witches gave him the Ancient Hourglass 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 like in the rest of the universe after the Ancestral Witches destroyed it in oder to threaten him. He ended by breaking the hourglass, which instead caused a sapling of the Tree of Life containing energy from the positive part of Tree of Life to grow on it.

Under the orders of the Ancestresses, the Trix attack Erendor in trying to find out where is the gift the Ancestresses gave him. 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 however to arrive to the haunted city, but find the Trix, with Icy using Erendor as 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 one of the Ancestresses to get angry.

All the good magic was in that sapling after the witches made the Tree's negative part take over the whole of it, and it was released when Icy destroyed the sapling while trying to attack Bloom, restoring the positive magic powers in the immediate area.

Bloom and Sky meet with the rest of the group and, able to use their Believix powers again, the Winx fight the Trix, who prove to be too weak to face them.

The Ancestral Witches decide to take over the bodies of the Trix, who attempt to flee, in vain. Having become extremely powerful, the Ancestress-possessed Trix become too strong for the combined forces of the Winx, the Specialists, Oritel and Erendor, and Bloom herself is difficultly able to face the possessed Icy and, in an attempt to protect her from another attack of Icy, Erendor is severely wounded. However, Oritel manages to temporarily distract the witches by attacking them and, using a Believix convergence, the Winx summon the essence of the Dragon's Flame, which extracts the Ancestresses from the Trix and destroys them once all.

Appearance
Judging from their appearances throughout the series, they are described as very old women (centuries old perhaps) with greying hair and masks around their yellow glowing eyes. They appear barefooted as well, wearing black or grey dresses and capes and bear reasemblance to the Trix.
 * Belladona being the ancestress of Icy, bares some similarities to her heir. Her grey hair is held up in five separate crown-like extensions possibly denoting her status as the leader of the trio. She wears a long grey dress with a black cloak (or as seen in an astral projection of herself in the third season, it is greyish blue while her cape is dark blue or it could be that because her powers are similar to Icy's her energy aura makes her appear this way). She also sports a mask around her yellow-glowing eyes. She also uses a dark dragon power in the movie Winx Club 3D: Magical Adventure.
 * Tharma being the ancestress of Stormy, she wears a long grey dress with a black cape though in her astral projection in Season 3, her dress appears maroon much like Stormy's witch uniform. Her hair is also frizzy, resembling a storm cloud much like Stormy's. She also sports a mask around her yellow-glowing eyes.
 * Lysslis being the ancestress of Darcy, bears few similarities to her heir. She has flowing grey hair as well as wears a long grey dress with a black cape. In her astral projected form in Season 3 her dress and cape appear a faded purple color. She also sports a mask around her yellow-glowing eyes.

Magical Abilities
Since they were the first users of dark arts, they are the most powerful witches in the whole Magic Dimension. They are able to curse powerful energies like Sirenix, petrify beings, create strong spells and possess (due to their spiritual body).
 * Bottomless Ice - This is a spell of Belladona. This was given to Mandragora, but its effect was not seen. This can be assumed to be the spell they used to freeze Domino.
 * Eternal Darkness - This a spell of Lysslis. This was given to Mandragora, which was used to destroy Griselda's shield and to weaken her.
 * Unchained Lightning - This is a spell of Tharma. This was given to Mandragora, but its effect was not seen.
 * Darkness Empowerment - They can strengthen dark energy and extinguish positive energy. They gave this to the Trix to extinguish the postive 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 overcome 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 fairytale 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 seem to have no feelings for people related to them and appear to care only for each other. This might be because, being the most evil beings of the Magic Dimension, they cannot feel love for anyone.
 * The Ancestresses treated Valtor like a servant and a puppet for their purposes at the end of Season 3 and appeared to like tormenting him, even though they still considered him as their son.
 * The Ancestresses never treated the Trix as their descendants in the second film, but rather as servers and the Trix also behaved as if the Ancestresses were their mistresses and even called them as such, possibly out of respect.
 * They are most likely not appearing in the next film, as they are destroyed in Magical Adventure.
 * 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, with the exception of Roxy, the last Earth Fairies, including Morgana, 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.