Hagazussa in Glasgow
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hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Hagazussa in Glasgow
@hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
340 followers 420 following 540 posts
Art historian, quarrelsome dame, and folk witch in Scotland. Slowly emerging from the broom closet 🧹

*hagazussa: an early medieval word for witch, later evolving into hex. Cognate with other early words that developed into hag and, possibly, hedge.
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hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Le Tarot Minchiate restauré, a restoration of the 18th-century Italian Minchiate Gaetano/al Aquila (the printer's name/sign respectively) by Emmanuelle Iger and Isabelle Nadolny. Colours returned to original richness. The knights are human-animal hybrids! #TarotSky #TarotTuesday #HistoricalTarot
A close-up of the serene, smiling face of the Strength/Fortitude figure. She is holding a classical column in her lap. The box, extensive guidebook, and sample cards. Sample cards from top to bottom and right to left: Capricorn, Four of Swords (decorated with critters including a napping unicorn), the Knight of Batons as a human lion hybrid, Element of Water (showing a ship and sailors), the card backs presumably showing an image of Gaetano the printer and labeled with his sign (All Aquila, or by the sign of the eagle), and the Prudence card with her mirror and snake.
November 25, 2025 at 4:38 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
A witchy rider carrying a stang and smoking cauldron

'Fantastic horse and rider', anonymous, drawing, c.1600, likely German, ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London, collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O148344...

#WitchSky #art #ArtHistory
A 17th-century drawing of a nude woman with wild hair on a galloping horse. She is looking over her shoulder behind her, while balancing a stang (forked stick), on which is hanging a steaming cauldron. The horse appears to be breathing smoke as it gallops through the clouds.
November 23, 2025 at 2:42 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Tam O'Shanter booking it over the bridge to escape angry witches. Alas, poor Maggie's tail. (Scene from Rabbie Burn's poem, Tam O'Shanter).

Tam O'Shanter, Thomas Stothard, oil on canvas, late 18th/early 19th century ©Victoria and Albert Museum, source ⬇️ #WitchSky #poetry #ArtHistory #art
Tam O'Shanter rides a galloping white horse over an arched stone bridge, with a coven of angry witches racing behind him in an attempt to catch him. The youngest witch, Nannie, at the front of the group, snatches away the horse, Maggie's, tail in an attempt to catch Tam.
November 23, 2025 at 12:14 AM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Witch book recommendation: Ashes & Stones by @allysonshaw.bsky.social. An elegy to the thousands persecuted for witchcraft in Scotland and how their memory lives in the land. Shaw journeys through the places they lived, died, and sometimes were memorialised. "They were just folk." #WitchSky #BookSky
The book cover for Ashes & Stones: A Scottish Journey in Search of Witches and Witnesses, by Allyson Shaw. A hand, with a starched cuff in the style of a ruff, holds a purple flower in its upturned palm. Surrounding the hand, against a background of dark blue, are other purple flowers and thistles. A crescent waning moon shines faintly above the hand.
November 21, 2025 at 2:31 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
A facsimile of Pierre Madenie's Tarot de Marseille from 1709, by Marianne Costa. Madenie's tarot is known for the delicate, expressive beauty of its human faces and their curling hair, as seen in the Chariot card here. Very matte, slightly larger than normal card stock #TarotSky #HistoricalTarot
A close-up of the charioteer's handsome face in Pierre Madenie's Tarot de Marseille Chariot card. He is holding a staff and wearing a crown, as well as chest and shoulder armour. The spaulders protecting his shoulders are in the shape of human faces. The card backs (with a royal blue and white all-over design), box, and three sample cards from left to right: 9 of Swrods, King of Batons, and Ace of Cups. The box says: El Tarot de Marsella, Marianne Costa, Libro y Tarot de Marsella, Original de Madenie (1709) The Chariot and 2 of Coins cards from left to right. The chariot is pulled by two blue horses, and the two coins are connected by a ribbon with the cartier's information printed on it: Pierre Madenie Cartier du Prince 1709.
November 20, 2025 at 5:59 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
A Witch, Edgar Bundy, oil on canvas, 1891, Wikimedia Commons #WitchSky #WitchAlt #art #ArtHistory
A witch with wild long hair and ragged clothing walks toward the viewer in a hunched-over posture with her arms bent upwards, almost as if in imitation of the huge black ravens flying around. She leers at the view with a grin. Fly agaric mushrooms grow in the grass at her feet. A sickle also lays on the ground in front of her. Behind her stand tall tree trunks, which partly obscure a raging fire, hovering in the air above which can be seen what look like skeletons.
November 19, 2025 at 7:00 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Three witches with a cat, a dog and a bird. Engraving c. 1800, after a woodcut 1619. The original woodcut actually depicted Anne Baker, Ioanne Willimot and Ellen Greene, accused witches from Leicestershire

Public domain, Wellcome Collection, source in comment, #WitchSky #WitchAlt #illustration #art
A black and white woodcut illustration of three accused witches wearing 17th-century clothing, here labeled Joan Flower with her two daughters Margaret and Philip. In the centre, Joan is standing on two crutches and has a birdlike creature on her shoulder. Her two daughters stand on either side with canes and have a cat and dog at their feet, respectively.
November 18, 2025 at 3:13 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
"I am NOT climbing in an oven! That happened to a friend of mine once. She had a lovely house too. But she ended up--" (the witch Lilia Calderu, in Marvel's "Agatha All Along")

Hansel and Gretel, Paul Friedrich Meyerheim, illustration, 1890, New York Public Library #WitchSky #WitchAlt #illustration
The witch from the story of Hansel and Gretel peeks from behind her front door while the two children pull off and nibble at parts of her gingerbread house.
November 14, 2025 at 1:39 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Got places to be, got things to do!

A woodcut book illustration by Ernst Barlach of witches flying on Walpurgisnacht in Goethe's Faust, 1922/1923, Wikimedia Commons
#WitchSky #WitchAlt #Art #ArtHistory #Illustration
A woodcut illustration of witches flying to their Walpurgis night revels above a wooded and rocky mountainside, which takes the form of an animal-like face. The witch in the foreground sits astride a broom with her feet kicked out sideways, while her fellow witch is grabbing her hair from behind while crouched in a flying sieve or pot. Behind and below them, in the distance, other witches fly unassisted, on a broom, and on a goat.
November 13, 2025 at 9:41 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
A tarot by Edoardo Dotti (1865 in Milan), reprinted by Deviant Moon Inc. Edoardo's father, Teodoro, took over Ferdinando Gumppenberg's print shop. Dotti tarots thus are derived from the Soprafino. Scrumptious dark pink and mallard green and blue colours! #TarotSky #HistoricalTarot #TarotTuesday
The tuck box (stating Edoardo Dotti Lombardy Tarot 1865, Deviant Moon Inc. and decorated with the Strength card showing a figure wrestling a lion) and card backs (with a yellow and blue geometric pattern and the text 'Milano'). Also three cards from left to right: The 5 of Cups, Queen of Swords, and Ace of Coins. The latter has the printer's name (Edoardo Dotti) and location (Milano) printed around the circumference of the coin. Three cards from the Edoardo Dotti tarot deck from left to right: Justice, the Moon, and the Knight of Swords.
November 12, 2025 at 1:47 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
As it just was St Martin's Day, a traditional revel of spooky season, I honour my grandparents, whom I miss painfully. My grandfather was persistent in grounding me in our Ukrainian diasporic culture (now I'm the family bearer of stories, recipes and artefacts (like this funny church theatre photo).
A sepia photograph from the 1940s of a smiling soldier in an Allied uniform. A sepia 1940s photograph of a glamorous woman with red lipstick and her hair in victory rolls. A photograph of a play/skit put on by young people at a local Ukrainian diasporic church in the 1940s. My grandmother pretends to cry, while my grandfather (on the right) wears a jaunty fake moustache.
November 12, 2025 at 1:21 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
A walk in Faskally Forest on a misty day, just 10 miles from Birnam Wood (made famous by Shakespeare's Macbeth). My witchy heart was singing. #WitchSky #WitchAlt
A photo from the edge of Loch Dunmore in Faskally Forest, Scotland. The birch, larch and other trees on the opposite bank are a blaze of autumn colours, mixed in with dark green Scots pine.
November 12, 2025 at 11:17 AM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
The Witches' Flight, Francisco Goya, oil on canvas, 1798, Museo Nacional del Prado, Wikimedia Commons, public domain #WitchSky #WitchAlt #Art #ArtHistory
Against a black background, three witches wearing only brimless, pointed hats and matching skirts float above the ground, holding a fourth figure on their back in the air. Below them, a man walks forward, bent over and covered by a cloth. Behind him, we see a donkey on the right and another person grovelling on the ground on the left.
November 10, 2025 at 8:20 PM
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Another version of the image of two witches cooking up a storm, here on a title page of Ulrich Molitor's De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, first published in 1489 #WitchSky #WitchAlt #Illustration

Wikimedia Commons, public domain
A woodcut images of two witches at a burning cauldron, putting in magical ingredients to create the storm overhead.
November 7, 2025 at 10:14 AM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Two witches cooking up a storm.

No info on Wiki Commons other than public domain, but I *think* this may be from or inspired by Ulrich Molitor's treatise, De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, published in 1489 in partial support of Kramer's Malleus Maleficarum #WitchSky #WitchAlt #art #illustration
A late medieval print illustration of two women doing witchcraft outdoors. They are placing creatures into a burning, jug-shaped pot that is sitting in a fire. Above them, clouds burst forth with either water droplets or hail.
November 5, 2025 at 10:50 AM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
The Gassman Tarot facsimile by Vieux Monde Express (linen finish). Photos can't fully convey the deck's stunning beauty: colours seem to glow from within against the peachy background. At some point in history, someone also painted clothes on figures without! #TarotSky #HistoricalTarot #TarotTuesday
Three cards from the deck from left to right: the armoured King of Swords on his throne, Two of Coins showing the printer's name and location (François Gassman, Geneva), and a very floral Two of Swords. The black card box and card backs, above three cards from left to right: the Lovers, Queen of Cups, and Judgment (with clothed figures)
November 4, 2025 at 2:36 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
A witch assembles a giant skeleton made out of ghosts and sets it on her enemies...

Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre, Utagwa Kuniyoshi, woodblock print triptych, c. 1844, Victoria and Albert Museum collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O73119/...

#WitchSky #WitchAlt #art #ArtHistory
A Japanese colour print from the Edo period in which a giant human skeleton bends forward to threaten two crouched men in the foreground. To the left, the princess and witch Takiyasha holds an open scroll and looks on.
November 3, 2025 at 12:07 AM
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Happy Halloween! #WitchSky #Halloween
Two jack o' lanterns glowing on a table
October 31, 2025 at 7:52 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Happy Halloween/Samhain! Here's another Salvator Rosa painting with witches and ghouls getting up to no good!

'The Witches' Sabbath', Salvator Rosa, oil on canvas, 1635/1654, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Google Art Project, Wikimedia Commons #WitchSky #WitchAlt #Art #ArtHistory #Halloween
Multiple witches and skeletal, fantastic monsters gather around a pile of magical implements on the ground. Many are holding torches or brooms. The nighttime landscape looks barren and blasted.
October 31, 2025 at 5:56 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Another Halloween witch in a newfangled flying contraption!

"Halloween -- ancient and modern", Clifford Berryman, cartoon drawing, 1909-1910, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-130251 (b&w film copy neg.) www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...

#WitchSky #WitchAlt #art #illustration
A black and white cartoon of two flying witches, one riding a broom across the full moon. Below her, a witch sits in an early airplane (out of like a biplane but without the paired wings), with a jack o' lantern decorating its frontage. Behind her, more figures fly in similar early flying machines.
October 30, 2025 at 2:27 PM
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The Witch, Salvator Rosa, c.1646, The Capitoline Museums, Wikimedia Commons

#WitchSky #WitchAlt #Art #ArtHistory #Halloween
An old woman wearing only a skirt and crown of leaves sits on a rock, reading from a grimoire. Her grey hair hangs down her shoulders. Her feet rest on top of a parchment, inside of a magic circle set out with candles stuck into the earth.
October 29, 2025 at 6:43 PM
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"'Tis Hallowe'en and I'm here again
from the man in the Moon in an Aeroplane
My charms are new and right up to date
Go tell by the Cards your fortune and fate."

Halloween postcard, 1910-1917, The New York Public Library, digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/0f6825...

#WitchSky #WitchAlt #Halloween
Am early 20th-century witch in a vaguely airplane-like flying contraption, the roof and seat of which are made of playing cards. She is holding a steering wheel and resting her feet on a footboard, while a broom sticks out the back of her flying machine. A black cat raises its back beside her and jack-o-lantern with a ?pear? for a nose acts as the nose of her plane. They appear to be pulled by three owls attached to a string, which fly across a crescent moon.
October 28, 2025 at 9:13 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Tarot from the time of Jane Austen! The Tarocco Neoclassico from 1810, reprinted by Il Meneghello. Empire-style dresses, delicate engraving, beautiful pink tones. Originally printed by Ferdinando Gumppenberg in Milan. Gentle imagery but stern, accurate readings #TarotSky #HistoricalTarot #WitchAlt
The Empress card, depicting a crowned woman in an ethereal white, Empire-style dress and blue cloak. The card backs with a black and white X and dot design, the Magician, Moon, and Lovers cards, from left to right. The Magician and woman in the Lovers card are wearing early 19th-century clothing (the woman in an empire-waisted pink dress and the Magician in breeches and a stylish cocked hat), while the two men in the Lovers card are dressed in a 19th-century imagining of imperial and military ancient Roman dress. Three pip cards: Ace of Coins, Knight of Cups (an ancient Roman cavalryman riding away from us), and Four of Swords
October 27, 2025 at 1:11 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Mural of a black cat and hooded crow at the Invergordon train station, in the Highlands, Scotland. Photo taken through a very smudgy train window.

A late #Caturday post. #WitchSky #WitchAlt #art
A painted mural of a window, upon the sill of which hunches a snarling and hissing black cat. The cat stares upward at the diving hooded crow that is harrassing it.
October 26, 2025 at 12:13 PM
hagazussainglasgow.bsky.social
Some Halloween costume inspiration...

Witch or Sorceress, fancy dress costume design by Leon Sault, 1860s, Victoria and Albert Museum collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O577321...

#WitchSky #WitchAlt #Halloween #Costume
A costume design drawing for a witch or sorceress wearing a tall, pointed hat with a sheer veil hanging down the back, a white dress with applied esoteric and celestial shapes, and a dark blue or black, gold, and pink over-dress with fortune-telling or playing cards decorating the skirt.
October 8, 2025 at 6:42 PM