Rehearsal of first flight witches, and with fear they try to work ( 2nd dream).

Within the series of drawings entitled Dreams, the seed of the Caprichos, a group devoted to witchcraft, including the present work, stands out for its number and singular subject matter. They illustrate scenes of which the painter had learned from his friend Leandro Fernández de Moratín (1760-1828), who had been working on the new edition of the Account of the Trial of the Faith celebrated in Logroño in 1610 since 1797. A further ten drawings in this series of Dreams deal with love, while other individual drawings depict donkeys, smugglers and monks. A feature common to all of them is the inscription in black pencil of a legend at the bottom, which in eleven cases begins with the word "dream".

Preparatory drawing for the etching of the Caprice 60. Rehersals. It heads a set of nine drawings on the subject of witches. Goya used witch themes to criticise the ignorance that presides over human behaviour. The scene has also been associated with shadow theatre and magic, a fashion of the time.

For Matilla, this image represents the initiation of a novice into the ritual of flight, assisted by another more experienced witch, the scene presided over by the shadowy silhouette of a billy goat. With its vague outlines, this magical beast acts as a vision that underlines the character of a fantasy world in which the women have taken flight by grasping, respectively, their hair and an ear. On the illuminated areas of the floor, on both sides of the main stage, the witches' clothes appear, as well as some spindles and spinning wheels, the tools of their honourable and abandoned work.

Matilla shows that various magical and sacrificial objects, such as bones and a dead puppy with its legs tied together, were placed in the shadows cast on the floor by the goat. Also worth noting is the human skull and the pitcher that attracts one of the two cats that gather at the feet of the goat. The posture of the novice, with her feet apart, her right hand as a support and extending the other, recalls the classical sculpture of the fallen Gladiator, a frequent model for the figure of Adam in depictions of the Creation or Fall of Man.

In the final engraving, the inexperienced and joyful novice is replaced by a witch who looks at her smiling and luminous teacher with an ambiguous expression, a mixture of debauchery, suspicion and fear, which emphasises not only the enchanting power and promise of life in Paradise, but also implies criticism of those who believe them and allow themselves to be tempted.