How is it that "witch" can mean "so evil and serious we need to burn her" and "so white-light and nonsensical we should mock and ignore her AND "vapid fuck toy"? It's almost as if "witch" has the exact same negative connotations as "woman"! And THAT is why I use the word witch, because I'm sick of that shit, and I'm taking back the night. I'm not evil, and I think anyone who knows me or sees my work knows that. I'm not fluffy, which, again I think is so amply demonstrated that I'm effectively proof against that claim. Finally, I assure you, I'm no one's toy. I am, however, incontrovertibly a witch by any definition, and a witch is a person who is dangerous to patriarchal hegemony.
Before I talk about the strict opposition of witches to oligarchical patriarchy, I want to talk about the word itself a little. "Witch" is a word with a fascinating and very ancient etymology. It is among the oldest and most culturally-embedded of English words for magical practitioners. Out modern word "witch" surely derives from the Old English "wicca" (male) and "wicce" (female). To modern ears, both words sound more or less the same, something like "witt-sheh" and were in wide-spread use by at least the 11th century. The pre-Old English etymology of witch is unclear. It appears to enter English through Germanic rather than Brythonic roots, although there are not clear Germanic cognates. Several Proto-Indo European roots are in play, including *wikkōn (sacred/prophetic) and *weg'- (rouse, as in, the dead). Early Wiccans prefered a derivation from *weid- (wise) but modern scholars largely disagree. No matter how it entered English, for as long as people have been speaking English, and likely long, long before, a person (of any gender) who told the future and spoke with the dead was a witch.
The earliest recorded use of the word "witch" in English is from circa 890 CE in the Laws of Aelfred. It is already in the pejorative. "Tha faemnan, the gewuniath onfon gealdorcraeftigan and scinlaecan and wiccan, ne laet thu tha libban." Take a second to try to read it out loud before moving on to the "translation" below. Let me interpolate a bit for you, showing which words still "work" in English, and which don't: "The femmes, the ?? and ? and witches, no let thou them living." Notice which words still work? THOSE are powerful words in English, words which retain their idea-generating force across millennia. The words that dripped from our earliest language-ancestors' tongues directly into our blood. "Women who are accustomed to receiving enchanters and sorceresses and witches, do not let them live!"
What did our language-ancestors think about witches before Christianity? It's hard to say. The Christianization of English began with the Gregorian missions of the late 500s. The last openly pagan king of England, Arwald (mya his name be blessed) was slain in battle in 686CE, after which time all English rulers have been (at least nominally) Christian. The persecution of witches almost undoubtedly enters England by way of pagan, but patriarchal, Rome. There is very little evidence to support claims that witchcraft was demonized in pre-Roman western Europe, and much evidence (such as the Prose Edda) to support the idea that it was not. However, none of this evidence is from English speakers.
The hatred of witches appears to be among the foundational pillars of oligarchical patriarchy, and there is no way to topple patriarchy without addressing it. So, I call myself "witch" as a continuation of that line of ancestresses who held that torch.
The earliest recorded use of the word "witch" in English is from circa 890 CE in the Laws of Aelfred. It is already in the pejorative. "Tha faemnan, the gewuniath onfon gealdorcraeftigan and scinlaecan and wiccan, ne laet thu tha libban." Take a second to try to read it out loud before moving on to the "translation" below. Let me interpolate a bit for you, showing which words still "work" in English, and which don't: "The femmes, the ?? and ? and witches, no let thou them living." Notice which words still work? THOSE are powerful words in English, words which retain their idea-generating force across millennia. The words that dripped from our earliest language-ancestors' tongues directly into our blood. "Women who are accustomed to receiving enchanters and sorceresses and witches, do not let them live!"
What did our language-ancestors think about witches before Christianity? It's hard to say. The Christianization of English began with the Gregorian missions of the late 500s. The last openly pagan king of England, Arwald (mya his name be blessed) was slain in battle in 686CE, after which time all English rulers have been (at least nominally) Christian. The persecution of witches almost undoubtedly enters England by way of pagan, but patriarchal, Rome. There is very little evidence to support claims that witchcraft was demonized in pre-Roman western Europe, and much evidence (such as the Prose Edda) to support the idea that it was not. However, none of this evidence is from English speakers.
The hatred of witches appears to be among the foundational pillars of oligarchical patriarchy, and there is no way to topple patriarchy without addressing it. So, I call myself "witch" as a continuation of that line of ancestresses who held that torch.
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