What is a witch?
A witch is a person who follows the 'Old Religion', which he or she believes to predate the Judai-Christian religion and which is nowadays called Wicca. Although some writers think the word 'Wicca' derives from the Old English verb witan, to know, and therefore means word 'wisdom', this is not the case. It derives from the Indo-European root-word weik, which produced, eventually, the Old English word wigle(sorcery), the Old Norse word wihl(craftiness) and thence the English words guile and wile. Other related words are the Old High German wihen(to consecrate) and the Middle German word wikken(to predict). This leads eventually to the Old English wicca(witch) and wiccian(to perform sorcery). Thus the word witch contains within it notions of sorcery, cunning, holiness and prediction. The original Indo-European word weik had to do with magic and religion.
It must be realized, however, that the Old English word Wicca took on the meaning of sorcerer, of one who has dealings with evil spirits, at a time when the Christian Church was beginning to spread the idea that those who worshipped other gods than the Christian one and yet performed acts of healing or claimed to have spiritual power were certainly dealing with evil forces. An act of healing in the name of Christ was good; an act of healing in the name of any other power was bound to have been done by the agency of evil spirits.
'Wicca' may be the wrong word to use to describe the Old Religion, but it seems to have come to stay. 'Witch' may still be used as as abusive term, but then, once upon a time, so was the label Christian, and then term Jew is still, unhappily, used abusively in some circles.
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