Table of Contents
The English witch, the Dutch heks and the Spanish bruja (Portuguese bruxa) all name a woman who works magic, but they did not come from one root and they did not enter writing at the same time. Each has its own history.
English: witch, from Old English wicce and wicca
Old English had two forms of the word, wicca for a man and wicce for a woman. Both come from the verb wiccian, to practise sorcery, which Guus Kroonen traces to a Proto-Germanic wikkōną. The spelling with a medial “t” first shows up in the 16th century.
The earliest recorded use is in the laws of King Alfred, from about 890. In the prologue to his law book Alfred put much of chapters 20 to 22 of Exodus into Old English, including Exodus 22:18. The King James Bible renders that verse as “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. Marianne Elsakkers points out that Alfred’s Latin source, the Vulgate, reads maleficos non patieris vivere, and that Alfred did not simply copy it. His version condemns women who keep company with enchanters, sorcerers and wiccan, using three words where the Latin has one. Old English glossaries also use wicce and wicca for Latin words that mean a diviner or soothsayer.
Where the word came from before that is still argued. The Brothers Grimm linked it to Gothic weihs, sacred. R. Lühr derived it instead from a root behind Old English wīglian, to practise divination. Anatoly Liberman has suggested a link with wise and wisdom, an idea David Wilton calls plausible but speculative.
The darker meaning grew in the late Middle Ages. Johannes Nider and other 15th century writers used the Latin maleficus for a person who did harm by sorcery. The idea that demons stood behind that harm was taken up in the Malleus Maleficarum, written by Heinrich Kramer and first printed at Speyer in 1486. The European witch hunts are usually dated from about 1450 to 1750, with the worst of the trials between 1560 and 1630.
Dutch: heks
Dutch heks comes from Middle Dutch hexe, a 15th century borrowing from Middle High German hecse. It pushed out the native Middle Dutch word hagetisse. Both go back to a West Germanic hagatussjā, which also gave Old High German hagazussa, German Hexe and Old English hægtesse, the source of English hag. So heks belongs to a different Germanic family from witch. The origin of hagatussjā is unknown, though its first part may be related to the word hedge.
Spanish bruja and Portuguese bruxa
The Iberian words come from neither Germanic root, and their origin is uncertain. One proposal traces them to a pre-Roman Iberian or Celtiberian bruxtia, from Proto-Celtic brixtā, spell or magic, which would make them kin to Old Irish bricht, a charm, and Old Breton brith, magic. Another links them to a different Celtic word, such as the name Brigit. Close relatives are Catalan bruixa, Occitan bruèissa and Galician bruxa.
By 1611 the word had a full entry in Sebastián de Covarrubias’s Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, the first dictionary of Spanish. Under bruxa he describes people who have given body and soul to the devil, and he notes that more women than men are called by the name.
Timeline of the word and the idea
| Date | Development |
|---|---|
| c. 890 | Alfred's laws use wiccan in a version of Exodus 22:18 |
| Late 10th c. | Ælfric warns Christians not to consult witches about their prosperity |
| c. 906 | Regino of Prüm records the Canon Episcopi, which calls women who believe they ride by night with Diana victims of dreams sent by Satan |
| c. 1140 | The canon enters Gratian's Decretum |
| 15th c. | Middle Dutch borrows hexe; Nider and others use maleficus for a witch |
| 1486 | Malleus Maleficarum printed at Speyer |
| c. 1450 to 1750 | The European witch hunts, at their worst from 1560 to 1630 |
| 16th c. | The spelling witch with a "t" appears |
| 1611 | Covarrubias defines bruxa in the first Spanish dictionary |
Witches and Atlantis
Shirley Andrews, in Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization, argues that witchcraft began in Atlantis and spread to the lands on both sides of the ocean.
Andrews traces the witch traditions of Europe and the Americas to one source.
Witchcraft was a popular occupation in Atlantis … Prehistoric traditions of witchcraft in Spain, France, Britain, and the Canary Islands on one side of the ocean, and in the West Indies and Mexico on the other, are remarkably similar.
Shirley Andrews, Atlantis: Insights from a Lost Civilization (short excerpt for review and study)
She goes on to say that no culture in western Europe was old and advanced enough to be the common source, so Atlantis is the only possibility. On both sides of the Atlantic, in her account, witches wore long black skirts and tall peaked hats, flew on broomsticks, kept owls, knew their herbs and could cast spells.
