Where people blamed fairies for misfortune, witch-hunts were rare
Almost every society has feared that some neighbour could cause harm by magic. Historians see witchcraft belief as a way to explain unaccountable bad luck. That is why Gaelic Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, which already blamed fairy folk, saw far fewer witch-hunts than the rest of the British Isles.
In its oldest and still most common sense, witchcraft means using magic to hurt others. The idea is attested in ancient Mesopotamia and in classical Europe. Historian Ronald Hutton lists features shared across most cultures: the witch harms his or her own community, gains power by inheritance or initiation, is considered immoral and often in league with evil beings, and can be stopped by counter-magic, persuasion, intimidation or punishment.
In medieval and early modern Europe, those accused were usually women, typically denounced by neighbours amid local tensions rather than by distant authorities. Pacts with the Devil were alleged mainly against people seen as enemies of the Church. Cunning folk sold protective magic, and while healers and midwives were sometimes accused, they formed a minority. The early modern trials led to tens of thousands of executions before belief faded during and after the Enlightenment. Witch-hunts still happen today in parts of Africa and Asia.
Anthropology shaped the modern debate. E. E. Evans-Pritchard's 1937 study of the Azande split harm done by inborn power, which he called witchcraft, from harm done with tools, which he called sorcery. Historians struggled to apply the split to Europe, where witches were thought to do both, and it has largely been dropped. Some African and Melanesian peoples believe a substance inside the witch acts even during sleep; the Dobu hold that women work harmful magic asleep and men while awake.
The English word is over a thousand years old, from Old English wicce, witch, joined to craft. Another Old English term, haegtesse, gave us hag and is linked to hex, the root behind German Hexe. Meanings have multiplied since. Hutton identifies at least four present-day senses: harmful magician, any magic user, follower of nature-based paganism, and symbol of independent female authority. Since the 1930s some modern pagans have claimed the title, while others avoid it.
Source: Witchcraft
