Black Witch (Fantaghiro)

The **Black Witch** (Brigitte Nielsen) is a major character in the *Fantaghirò* series. She is the main villain of the 1992 Italian fantasy TV film *Fantaghiro 2* (also known as *The Cave of the Golden Rose 2*) and then returns as a supporting character in the 1993 film *Fantaghiro 3* and the 1994 film *Fantaghiro 4*. She then comes back briefly as a different character in the 1996 film, *Fantaghiro 5*. Each of the films is divided into two parts.

The Black Witch is also known as the **Dark Witch**, the **Black Queen**, and (in Italian) Strega Nera / Reina Nera. She is a beautiful but wicked, cruel, and scheming woman who wields black magic and hates everything that is good. She is initially the mistress of Bolt and Lightning, as well as the ruler of the Dark Kingdom. She soon becomes a sworn enemy of Princess Fantaghiro (Alessandra Mertines).

In the *Fantaghiro* animated series, she was renamed as **Princess Kyra** (or **Kira**), also known as the Black Witch.

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Duration 26:35

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Current Time 0:03

## *Fantaghiro 2* (1992)

Narrator: "Once upon a time and a long time ago there was a queen. But she was not a queen like any other: the Black Queen was the most cruel, the meanest, the most ruthless. In short, it was the witchest of all the queens we know of."

In *Fantaghiro 2* (TV episodes 3 and 4), the Black Witch hears news of the wedding of Princess Fantaghiro and Prince Romualdo. She therefore sends her young apprentice Bolt to spy on them. In this movie, the Dark Witch is tall, buxom, and very much aware of her beauty, especially proud of her breasts. She wears dark and revealing dresses that emphasize her attractiveness and stature, which fits her role as a seductress. Her headgear is either a black helmet shaped like a bird's head (with no hair visible) or a tall silver crown over long red hair.

The Dark Witch, makes it her mission to destroy their love affair. The Dark Witch has no power in Fantaghiro's kingdom, but within her own land she is a great and powerful witch. With a spell, she brings a box of toy soldiers to life so that they can serve her as an army in the plot. They attack and kidnap Fantaghiro's father the King, which disrupts the wedding.

When Romualdo and his army arrive near the Dark Castle, the Dark Witch takes the form of Princess Fantaghiro and visits Romualdo's tent. She tricks Romualdo into kissing her and he collapses. She then brings him back to the castle where he sleeps, and his memory of Fantaghiro is slowly erased from his mind. When this is accomplished, the Dark Witch (now back in her true form) wakes him up at night in a bed in her castle. He calls her his "mistress" and "beloved" and despite her denials of feelings, she also falls for the handsome shirtless prince. They start kissing passionately as they spend a night together.

The Dark Witch allows Fantaghiro to enter her castle, where she finds Romualdo totally infatuated with the Dark Witch. Bolt and her brother Lightning conspire against their mistress, tricking her into drinking poison that makes her fall asleep, and then releases all of Romualdo's men. Fantaghiro and her minions overpower Romualdo and make their escape, but the Dark Witch wakes up just in time to stop Romualdo and Fantaghiro from leaving the borders fo the Dark Kingdom.

The Dark Witch and Fantaghirò then have a battle of wits, where Fantaghirò appeals to her sense of pride, getting her to change into various forms. The Dark Witch falls for this ruse, transforming into a crystal statue that Fantaghirò smashes with her Come-Back-Again-Stone.

But unknown at the time, a piece of the Dark Witch survives the destruction of her physical form, entering Romualdo's head. Fantaghirò attempts to get Romualdo to remember who they are and their love for each other. Romualdo almost succeeds, and that is when he feels a terrible pain in his head and the Dark Witch reveals herself to have survived. She viciously transforms Fantaghirò into a new form in the hopes that Romualdo will never love her again. But then the White Witch appears and shoots a magical arrow, a transformed Bolt, which kills the Dark Witch (for now).

## *Fantaghiro 3* (1993)

Bolt and Lightning recover pieces of the Dark Witch from where she was destroyed in the first film. The broken pieces have turned into rocks that are darker and smoother than regular rocks. They bring the pieces to Fantaghirò, and with a little bit of cloud dust, revive the head so she can talk. As just a head, the Dark Witch has a golden helmet with a straight horn in the front, with no hair visible. Fantaghirò wants to know how to revive Romualdo, who has been turned to stone. The Dark Witch tells her that it needs an Impossible Kiss, which Fantaghirò needs to get from the one who cast the spell, i.e. Tarabas. Lightning quickly turns the Dark Witch's head back to stone once they get this information.

Later the Dark Witch is fully revived because Fantaghirò needs her help fighting Tarabas. Lightning and Bolt get all the pieces and then puts them back together with the magic dust. In this form, the Dark Witch wears a long dress with a large collar, and a headress with a horn worn at the front of short, black hair. The Dark Witch agrees to help Fantaghirò in exchange for one vital piece that she needs, her heart, which Lightning is keeping hold of.

The Dark Witch then tries to train Fantaghirò in the ways of black magic, but she is too kind-hearted and good. The Dark Witch follows them on their quest to find Tarabas anyway, because she has always wanted to meet him, but once they find his lair she is shut out, because Tarabas only wants to meet Fantaghirò.

After Fantaghirò obtains the Impossible Kiss, the Dark Witch agrees to bring it to Romualdo to revive him. However, she breaks her promise, keeping the Impossible Kiss to herself, and only offering to give it back in exchange for her heart. The Dark Witch gets her heart back and eagerly swallows it.

## *Fantaghiro 4* (1994)

The Dark Witch is living underground in Tarabas' former lair, trying to regain her dark powers. They have not come back to fullness because she had helped Fantaghirò, and every spell she tries somehow turns out good by accident, such as turning things into flowers. The Gnomes taunt her for this and attempt to kill her. The Dark Witch flees humiliated and fearful for her life.

She discovers the remnants of the evil witch Xellesia, the White Queen, inside the furnace where she had died. Xellesia promises to help the Dark Witch regain her powers, in exchange for helping revive Xellesia back to life. The Dark Witch agrees.

The Dark Witch fails in her spells again, when she turns herself into a turkey. Once again, the Dark Witch is humiliated, and Xellesia has to change her back into the witch. The two fly on brooms to travel together to find Tarabas, who is working together with Fantaghirò investigating the mysterious Black Cloud. Xellesia is crushed to death while trying to go through a cave, but in doing so, the rest of the party is spared the crushing death.

## *Fantaghiro 5* (1996)

The Dark Witch, still stripped of most of her magical powers, hopes that killing someone so good and noble (performing any act of extreme evil) as Fantaghirò can let her retrieve them with this. She captures Fantaghirò and plans to execute her: Fantaghiro is tied up, and then her head is put on the block to be chopped off by the Dark Witch and her large blade. However, a bright light encircles Fantaghiro, which is said to be a magical mandrake root. It is sent by the good which Asteria (Mchaela May), and she escapes from her dungeon to an alternate world.

In this other world, there is a cannibalistic pirate known only as "Nameless" who has attacked a peaceful kingdom with an army of fruit-men in order to kidnap and devour the inhabitant's who are children. Asteria then morphs into the wicked Dark Witch for a time. At the end fo the film, the Dark Witch transforms back into Asteria, and it is found that the magical root can no longer bring Fantaghiro back to her own kingdom.

## Cartoon

In the animated series, Kyra the Black Witch is an evil witch-queen who has been a princess of the kingdom of Tuan but now worships and serves the terrible demon Darken (also losely based on a character from the film series). She is the source of the hunger, disease, hatred and war in Romualdo's kingdom of Dana. The Black Witch seeks to gain eternal youth, defeat her rival Fantaghiro, and marry Prince Romualdo. But, in the end, she teams up with Fantaghiro who saves her from Darken's treachery to destroy him.