witches are cute--- and scary-- and.... er.... Russian Politicians(?)

If you do a search of images of witches on certain internet graphics websites, you find a really fascinating juxtaposition of scary evil witch images from, say, the 1500s (around the time our modern concept of the witch develops) and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch looking cute and perky at various functions. Oh, and various "witch doctors" from third world countries in full costume. And, inexplicably: Vladimir Putin. ??

One of the things that is most fascinating to me is that in old woodcuts of witch trials, almost ALWAYS the witches are female and the entire crowd of people surrounding/executing them is male. And if there are women, they are there either as other witches or horrified onlookers. Women don't appear, in most of the art, to be enjoying the spectacle the way the men are.