A warlock is a male practitioner of

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...

Etymology and terminology

The most commonly accepted etymology derives '' warlock'' from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

'' wǣrloga'', which meant "breaker of oaths" or "deceiver" and was given special application to the devil around 1000. In early modern Scots, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of

witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...

(which can be male or female, but has historically been used predominantly for females). The term may have become associated in Scotland with male witches due to the idea that they had made pacts with Auld Hornie (the devil) and thus had betrayed the Christian faith and broke their baptismal vows or oaths. From this use, the word passed into Romantic literature and ultimately 20th-century popular culture. A derivation from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

''varð-lokkur'', "caller of spirits", has also been suggested, but the '' Oxford English Dictionary '' considers this implausible due to the extreme rarity of the Norse word and because forms without hard ''-k'', which are consistent with the Old English etymology ("traitor"), are attested earlier than forms with a ''-k''.

History

Although most victims of the witch trials in early modern Scotland were women, some men were executed as warlocks. In his day, the mathematician

John Napier John Napier of Merchiston (; 1 February 1550 – 4 April 1617), nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston. His Latinized name was Ioan ...

was often perceived as a warlock or magician for his interest in divination and the occult, though his established position likely kept him from being prosecuted.Julian Havil, ''John Napier: Life, Logarithms, and Legacy'' (2014, ), page 19

References

{{reflist Supernatural legends European witchcraft Rebels