Vintage Victorian Halloween Greeting Card with Witch and Cauldron

Nothing quite captures the contradiction between cheerful greeting and ominous scene like a 1910 card that depicts a long-bearded, hunched witch sitting on a stool and brooding over a blue cauldron suspended above open flames, all under the banner of 'Happy Halloween' — because apparently the best way to express 'thinking of you' is by depicting what appears to be a deeply contemplative act of malevolent cooking. The witch, draped in voluminous brown robes and sporting a tall black hat with what appears to be a gold band, leans forward with one hand raised to their face in a pose that screams 'I have made terrible decisions and I am reconsidering them.' A broom is casually parked against the fireplace like it's a bicycle outside a café, and a black cat sits nearby, judging everyone involved — including you, the recipient of this genuinely baffling greeting card.