Modest Mussorgsky wrote Night on Bald Mountain in 1867, inspired by Russian folklore about a witches' sabbath, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov later arranged the version most people recognise today. Walt Disney's Fantasia in 1940 brought it to a huge new audience, pairing the music with the demon Chernabog summoning spirits on a mountain at night. That vivid sequence made the piece a shorthand for darkness and menace in popular culture, and creators still reuse the opening swell online for horror edits, memes and dramatic reveals.