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What is a witch? What is witchcraft? These two questions don't have easy answers. The word witch is a very emotionally charged word, bringing up conflicting images across the centuries. It is hard to understand which image, if any, is correct.
For most of the Western world, the word witch evokes the villain of many fairy tales. We watch the old hag giving the poisoned apple, brewing harmful potions, eating children, and casting curses. At Halloween, stores sell decorations of witches, old ugly women with green faces and pointed hats riding around on broomsticks. Although these are familiar portraits, they are not the first. Because of humanity's fear of that which is different and mysterious, the witch was resigned to the world of children's stories, to make the folk stories of witchcraft impotent from the realm of make-believe. If only children believed in witches, then the power of the witch would no longer be a reality, but a fantasy. Unfortunately, fictionalizing witchcraft was not the only way humankind dealt with its fear.
If you turn back a few hundred years, you can see the word witch all across the records of one of Europe's greatest holocausts, the witch trials. Men and women were persecuted and killed for being different. Some call it the Burning Times, because many were put to death by fire, burnt at the stake. Typically, history books gloss over this particular bit of history, but it is every bit a part of us, as relevant to our modern cultures as wars of conquest.
At the top of the list of victims were those accused of practicing witchcraft. The ruling powers of the time had their own ideas about witchcraft, spreading stories of black masses, sacrifice, and contracts in blood signing souls over to the Devil. These stories are the roots of the children's fairy tales. The vast majority of the condemned were not practicing "true" witchcraft. Some held the teachings of the wise women and cunning men of the tribes, a knowledge of healing herbs, remedies, midwiving, and simple charms. We call such skills old wives' tales, but they have endured because there is truth to them. We don't know how many of the accused and condemned were actually practicing what is now called the Old Religion, the way of the witch.
If you turn back even further, to cultures whose histories were not often written down, you find a different kind of witch. This witch was not shrouded in the darkness of fear and fairy tales, but in the darkness and light of the Goddess. This witch was revered as a healer, teacher, leader, and wise one. The image of the witch inspired the same reverence that a priest or minister does now in modern culture, for the ancestors of modern witchcraft were the priestesses and priests, the seers and advisors living a spiritual life by tuning into the forces of nature, the tides of the seasons, and the cycles of the Moon. They held a kinship with the plants and animals and, in essence, all life. Their teaching and histories were kept in the oral tradition, holding the myths and magick of the culture.
Modern witches focus on this particular root in the witchcraft tree. Those claiming the name and title of witch are truly reclaiming and building on the image of the witch from these ancient days. If you really want to know what the words witch and witchcraft mean as we move into the next century, look at the growing movement of modern witches.
If you ask a witch what he or she means by the word, you will get as many definitions as there are witches. And yes, witches can be both women and men. I’m a man and identify myself as a witch. Male witches are not called warlocks. The word warlock can be traced from Scottish, Old English, Germanic, and Indo-European roots and is now generally regarded to mean "deceiver" or "oath breaker" to those involved in the craft. Such a title was probably associated with witchcraft by those who wanted to defame the practice.
