Wicca/Wiccan

 The word Wicca comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for witch – though it has nothing to do with the hotchpotch belief that forms the new-age and often feminist 'wicca'. The word 'wicca' was masculine – meaning a male witch or magician, a soothsayer. The feminine was Wicce. In Anglo-Saxon it would have been pronounced as wicha or wiche, sounding like witch. The terms wiccecræft and wiccedôm both meant witchcraft.

  The word shares a root with 'wick' – as in wicker. Wicker is the bending of willow to make baskets, or frames for walls ('Wattle and daub'). The wicker lengths used in wattle walls were called wands – hence these became the witch's wand. The root of the word wattle also comes form the same root as 'to weave' so the symbolism works on many levels. This didn't go unnoticed by the church – who gave these woman the name 'wicked' (from wicker) – which survives today as the derogatory 'wicked witch'.

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