Stygian Witches

"A Titan against a Titan!"

- The Stygian Witches The Stygian Witches are important antagonists in the 1981 film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake. They are three blind old witches who have vast knowledge and can predict the future with a shared magical eye, but they have a craving for human flesh.

They are portrayed by Flora Robson, Anna Manahan and Freda Jackson in the original movie and by Ross Mullan, Robin Berry and Graham Hughes in the remake.

Clash of the Titans (1981)
The Stygian Witches are living in a cavern in the mountains of the North of Joppa and eat anyone coming to visit them. When the plague of Calibos infested the city, the queen Cassiopeia sent ambassadors to the Witches in order to find a solution, but they ate all of them. After the goddess Thetis demanded Andromeda to be sacrificed to the Kraken, Perseus decides to go see the Witches to find a way to kill him. Guided by the mechanical owl Bubo, Perseus arrives in the cavern while the three witches are simmering a victim in their cauldron. They see him enter with their magical eye and invite him to come closer in order to attack him, however Bubo flies in the cavern and manages to steal their eye. After catching it, Perseus asks how to defeat the Kraken, and the Stygian Witches reveal that the only way is to petrify him with the head of Medusa, who lives in the Underworld. Before leaving, Perseus throws the eye in the cavern and the three witches start searching it.

Clash of the Titans (2010)
The Stygian Witches live in the Garden of Stygia, where the Kraken vanquished the Titans. After Hades declared that he will send the Kraken to destroy Argos, Perseus and a few soldiers go find the Witches, who are the only one to know how to defeat the creature. When they arrive at their lair, the three witches approach them with hostility. Perseus interrogates them about the Kraken, but they demand a sacrifice in exchange for their answers and attack him and the soldiers. They capture one of them in order to eat him, however Perseus manages to catch their magic eye and obliges them to let the soldier go and to reveal how to kill the Kraken. The Witches tell him that the only way is to use the head of Medusa, a Gorgon living in the Underworld who can petrify any living creature with her gaze. Perseus then throws them the eye, but before he leaves the Stygian Witches reveal that he will die at the end of his journey.

Trivia

 * They are inspired by the Graeae from Greek mythology.