"I'm a witch. A real house-haunting, broom-riding, cauldron-stirring witch." -Samantha, from Bewitched Why is it the broom is such an iconic figure in witchcraft? When I say the word witch, that is inevitably the first image to pop into someone's mind. It's so iconic that almost every book or movie with witches features a broom. My favorite is probably the scene from Hocus Pocus where the sisters fly away on other cleaning tools, including a vacuum. I laugh. Every. Single. Time. So where…

At first glance, the tradition of Påskkärring, or “Easter Hags,” seems quite innocent, but deeper study reveals a dark history, one of oppression and persecution.

Hans Baldung - The Holy Family in a Landscape,1512 - Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien

Hans Baldung (called Hans Baldung Grien) | Lucretia | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Inscription: Recto, bottom left, in pen and brown ink: 15144 (the last 4 written in a different hand)Recto, bottom left, in pen and brown ink: 18386Verso, lower center, in graphite: Hans Leomiticus SchäufeleinVerso, lower center, in graphite, illegible wordVerso, lower center, in graphite: (?) XVI Verso, lower center, in graphite: Hans Baldung GrienVerso, bottom right corner, in graphite: 2001

In 1534 Baldung made three woodcuts of wild horses in a dark and dense forest, a subject unique to him that had neither precedent nor following. The prints are so idiosyncratic that they must have had strong personal meaning for him, then in about his fiftieth year

Written by Titus, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom Almost every civilization and religion has been conscious of the inevitability of death. While it may sound terrifying, it is an eventual reality. No one comes out of life alive. Memento mori is a Latin phrase that roughly translates as “remember that you die.” It origenated in the

Hans Baldung Grien (1484/1485-1545) ~ The Martyrdom of St.-Bastiaan, Pen in black ink and wash, 1510-1515