and male respectively (see Magic and Witchcraft). “Witch,” formerly of common gender, represents O. Eng. wicca (masc.), wicce (fem.), agent-nouns to wiccian, to practise sorcery, probably a causative verb from O. Eng. wícan, to give way (cf. “weak”), and therefore signifying to avert (evil), conjure away. So Norweg. vikja means (1) to turn aside, (2) to exorcise. The participial “wicked” means witch-like. “Wizard” is formed from “wise,” with the slightly contemptuous Anglo-French suffix -ard, as in drunkard, laggard, sluggard, &c.
WITCH BROOMS, or “Birds' Nests,” in botany, peculiar broom-like growths often seen on the branches of many trees. They are a dense development of branching twigs formed at one place on a branch as the result of the irritation set up by the presence of a mite or a fungus.
WITCHCRAFT, a term often used of magical practices of all sorts, but here confined to the malevolent (“black”) magic of women. It should, however, be noted that the male witch occasionally appears in folklore, while “white witchcraft” is common; the practices of the witch of Endor are akin rather to spiritualism than witchcraft. The German term hexe was not originally applied to human beings at all, but to child-devouring demons, corresponding to the Roman lamia; and it is used in this sense till the 14th century, it does not appear in literature in its present sense till some time in the 13th century.
The modern European conception of the witch is perhaps the result of the fusion of several originally discrete ideas. In some countries we find the distinction made between conjurers, witches and sorcerers; the former were supposed to raise the devil by means of spells and force him to do their will; the witch proceeded by way of friendly pact with an evil spirit; a third class produced strange effects, without the aid of spirits (see Magic), by means of images or forms of words. We also find a distinction drawn between diviners, mathematici ( = astrologers), crystal-gazers, necromancers and others; but it must be remembered that our knowledge for the earlier period is rather of learned ideas than of the actual popular beliefs, and for the later period of the popular belief sophisticated by ecclesiastical subtleties. In present-day belief the witch is, like the savage magician, initiated by another or herself performs ceremonies believed to give her magical powers. She possesses a familiar (see Lycanthropy; Magic), whose form she can assume; she can ride through the air in some cases and is equally adept at all kinds of magic. Sir A. C. Lyall maintains that the witch is a person who works magic by her own powers, not by the aid and counsel of supernatural beings; but this view, though it may be true of poisoning and similar features formerly reckoned a part of witchcraft, does not apply to the European witch. Witchcraft and possession are found in close relation in the psychical epidemics of the middle ages, but are otherwise unrelated.
Witchcraft among Primitive Peoples.—Although magical powers are everywhere attributed to women, witchcraft as here defined is by no means universal; in Europe alone is the woman the almost exclusive repository of magical powers; in the Congo the muntu ndongo may be either a man or a woman, and in fact the sexes are said to be engaged in magical pursuits in approximately equal numbers; in Australia men are much more concerned with magic than women, but the latter have certain forms peculiar to themselves in the central area, and, as in medieval Europe, it is largely concerned with sexual matters. At the present day the European witch is almost invariably old, but this is not characteristic of the female magician of primitive peoples, or not to the same extent; it must be remembered that the modern idea of witchcraft is largely a learned product—the result of scholastic and inquisitorial ingenuity, mingled to a greater or less extent with genuine folk beliefs. In India, among the Agariyas of Bengal, the instruction in witchcraft is given by the old women; but the pupils are young girls. The Indian witch is believed to have a cat familiar; there, as in Europe, many tests are applied to witches; they may be thrown into water, or their identity discovered by various forms of divination; or they may be known by the fact that beating them with the castor oil plant makes them cry out. As a punishment the witch may be shaved, made to drink dirty water, or otherwise ill-used.
Witchcraft in Classical Times.—Our knowledge of witchcraft in pagan antiquity is slight, but Horace has left us an elaborate description of the proceedings of two witches in the Esquiline cemetery. At the new moon they steal into it to gather bones and noxious herbs, their feet bare, their hair loose and their robes tucked up. So far from aiming at secrecy, however, they alarm their neighbours with their cries. Making a hollow in the ground they rend a black lamb over it to summon the dead. Then taking two images, one of wool representing a witch, one of wax representing the man whose infidelity she wishes to punish, a witch performs magical ceremonies; the moon turns red, hell hounds and snakes glide over the spot. Then they bury the muzzle of a wolf and burn the waxen image; as it melts, so fades the life of its prototype. In Greece Thessalian women had the reputation of being specially powerful witches; their poisons were famous and they were said to be able to make the moon descend from the sky.
Medieval Witchcraft.—We know less of early and medieval witchcraft than of modern savage and popular beliefs; our knowledge of it is drawn partly from secular sources—the laws against, and in later times the trials for the offence—partly from ecclesiastical sources; but in each case the popular creed is filtered through the mind of a writer who did not necessarily understand or share the belief. For the earlier period we have penitentials, decisions of councils, discussions as to the possibility of the various kinds of witchcraft, as to their exact relation to the sin of heresy or as to the mechanism by which the supposed results were achieved; at a later period the trials of witches before the Inquisition are of great importance; but the beliefs of this period must be sharply distinguished from those of the earlier one. Finally we have a great mass of material in the secular trials of the 16th and two following centuries.
There are marked differences in the character of the witchcraft beliefs of different countries, due perhaps in part to the influence of the Inquisition, which reacted on the popular conceptions, in part to real differences in the original folk beliefs. In northern countries the witches’ Sabbath never seems to assume any importance; in Germany, in the form of the Brocken assembly on May Eve, it is a prominent feature, and in England we may bring it into relation with the belief that at certain periods of the year demons and spirits are abroad and have special powers; in south Europe the idea of the Sabbath seems to owe much of its prominence to the association of witchcraft with heresy and the assemblies of the Waldenses and others. Again, the “evil eye” (q.v.) is especially associated with the south of Europe; and the “ligature” (production of impotence by magical means, often only with reference to a specified individual) has always played a far larger part in the conception of witchcraft than it has in the less amorous northern climes, and it is doubtless due to this in great part that woman in this part of Europe is so prominent in magic; in the north, on the other hand, we find the storm-raising woman, hardly yet extinct in the north of Scotland, already famous in pre-Christian times; we may perhaps connect the importance of woman in Germany in part with the conception of the Wild Hunt and the spirits who fly by night, though doubtless other factors played their part.
Development of Ideas.—In the history of European witchcraft we may distinguish three periods: (1) down to A.D. 1230, in which the real existence of some or even all kinds of magic is doubted, and the various species are clearly held asunder in secular and ecclesiastical writings; (2) from 1230 to 1430, during which, under the influence of scholasticism, the doubts as to the possibility and reality of witchcraft gradually vanish, while side by side with this theoretical development the practice of the Inquisition instils the new conception into the popular mind and produces the impression that a great recrudescence of witchcraft was in progress; (3) from 1430 onwards the previously disparate conceptions became fused, at any rate in literature, and we reach the period of witch persecution, which did not come to an end till the 17th or even the 18th century.
