Witches are women who practice dark magic with only 1 intention: to bring back the souls of the damned from the beyond.
Witches can be recognized by their black clothing and certain specific items like : the black cat, their "love" for halloween, their broom or the cauldron with the strange goo. Now a little about why these items are in corelation with the witch.
1. The black cat : It is said that the black cat is a reincarnation of a hell's or a witches' soul trying to break free. They are considered to be the familiar because they often are more active at night and because of the gloomy eyes in the dark.
[img]http://www.clipartpal.com/_thumbs/pd/holiday/halloween/black_cat_pumpkin.png[/img]
2. The "love" for halloween : It is said that on the night of the halloween a gate opens from the beyond allowing the trapped souls to come out into the real world. And the witches can catch the souls withing their cats to use for a later ritual or the have a better affinity with the pet.
3. The caouldron is a "device" to get the souls faster out of the abyss. With the circular spin of the spoon within the cauldron's liquid because of the centrifugal force the sides tend to go upper than the center and this represents the posibility of the souls to climb from the middle to the top and eventually exit their prison. Also, the cauldron is very much used on the halloween's days.
[img]http://dryiceandgases.com/img/smoking_witches_cauldron.jpg[/img]
4. The broom (not the flying broom) : Witches are solitary persons and they prefeer to stay in the woods. They will have to cut their way clear of all the vegetation there by using a stick. But they don't have a stick, so the use the long end of the broom instead. Because of people's fear for the witches they have given the broom supernatural powers with would allow the witch to fly and scare people.
[img]http://images.buycostumes.com/mgen/merchandiser/61126.jpg?is=350,350,0xffffff[/img]
Also the pumpkin may be reffeered as being a witches' tool, because on the night of the halloween they guild the souls with their light.