Warlock

Warlocks are traditionally said to be the male equivalent of witches (usually in the prejorative sense of Europe's Middle Ages), and were said to ride pitch-forks (six foot two-tined forks, for manoeuvering unbound hay) instead of broomsticks.

The word itself has negative implications, coming from a Scottish word meaning "oathbreaker" or "liar". ¹ However, http://www.ladyoftheearth.com/witch/warlock.txt suggests that the word may come from the Old Norse Vard-lokkur, "caller of spirits".

However, this may be a new myth, as the frequent use of "warlock" to describe a male witch is largely based on Hollywood scriptwriters, especially those writing for the 1960s sitcom, Bewitched[?]. ²

¹: Lexico LLC, "Dictionary.com/warlock," Dictionary.com URL: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=warlock (January 13, 2001)

²: Pavlac, Brian A. "10 Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts, Corrected and Commented," Prof. Pavlac's Women's History Resource Site. (October 31, 2001). URL: http://www.kings.edu/womens_history/werror (January 13, 2002).

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There is another version for the origin of the word warlock, coming from Old English 'wær-loga', the man of the logs, alluding to the small pieces of wood the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian priests and wise men used to divine by means of the runes. This seems to have been a slang word of Christian coinage pejoratively used on those who remained Pagan and practising the art of the runes. Later the word came to mean traitor to designate those warlocks who, after having been forced to accept Christianity, returned to their original faith and practice (for Christians, those who committed apostasy or betrayed the "true faith"); this occurred during a time in which many Pagan Anglo-Saxons were killed for refusing to accept Christianity and then the surviving Pagans celebrated the invasion of the Heathen Vikings, which allowed them to return to their original belief (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a good resource for information about these happenings). The Anglo-Saxon warlock was not considered good or evil; he was believed to be able to heal, to cause disease, to cast or break spells, and to divine past, present and future, all this mainly by means of the runes. By extension, it became a synonym of sorcerer and wizard, and also of a typical mediaeval diabolical male witch (in this sense either able to fly in several ways, see Sabbath, witchcraft). The misuse of the word witch to name both witch and warlock is turning the word into an archaic one. Anyhow, this is not a mythical but a historical word.

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Warlocks in Movies

• Warlock[?] (1989)
• Warlock: The Armageddon[?] (1993)