Compare Witches From Folklore Around The World

Depictions, even in Classical times, diverged from the detail in Homer's narrative, which was later to be reinterpreted morally as a cautionary story against drunkenness. Circe was also taken as the archetype of the predatory female. In the eyes of those from a later age, this behaviour made her notorious both as a magician and as a type of sexually-free woman. She has been frequently depicted as such in all the arts from the Renaissance down to modern times.Western paintings established a visual iconography for the figure, but also went for inspiration to other stories concerning Circe that appear in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The episodes of Scylla and Picus added the vice of violent jealousy to her bad qualities and made her a figure of fear as well as of desire.

A succubus may take a form of a beautiful young girl, but closer inspection may reveal deformities of her body, such as bird-like claws or serpentine tails. Folklore also describes the act of cunnilingus on their vulvas, which drip with urine and other fluids. In later folklore, a succubus took the form of a siren.

She is usually portrayed as a hag riding a broomstick through the air wearing a black shawl and is covered in soot because she enters the children's houses through the chimney. She is often smiling and carries a bag or hamper filled with candy, gifts, or both.