Witch (redirected from witching)

witch¹

a person, usually female, who practises or professes to practise magic or sorcery, esp black magic, or is believed to have dealings with the devil

---

witch²

a flatfish, Pleuronectes (or Glyptocephalus) cynoglossus, of N Atlantic coastal waters, having a narrow greyish-brown body marked with tiny black spots: family Pleuronectidae (plaice, flounders, etc.)

---

Witch 

sorceress, according to folk beliefs, upheld by medieval Christian theologians, a female servant of the devil, allegedly possessing supernatural power to harm people and animals. The belief in witches originated as early as during the period of the disintegration of primitive communal relations. The Russian term for witch ved’ma, derived from the verb vedat’ (to know), probably originally designated merely a wise, knowing woman. The attribution of harmful magic power to women with some peoples is apparently connected with the struggle against the female role in the transition era from the matriarchal to the patriarchal clan system.

In medieval Europe the Christian Church, which considered woman to be more sinful and depraved by nature than man, in every way sustained and intensified the belief in witches; hundreds of thousands of completely innocent women were burned as witches at the stake by the Inquisition in the 15th through 17th centuries. According to superstition, the witch usually hides her deeds and outwardly is no different from other women, but she secretly sends illnesses, takes away milk from cows, spoils the harvest, and so forth. Legends have been told of nightly orgies—the witches’ sabbaths—as for example, on the Lysaia Gora (Bald Mountain) near Kiev or on the summit of Mount Brocken in the Harz Mountains. Images of witches have been used in literature by such writers as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Gogol.

In everyday language “witch” designates a wicked, cantankerous, or ugly woman.

REFERENCES

Kantorovich, la. Srednevekovye protsessy o ved’makh, 2nd ed. St. Petersburg, 1899.
Lozinskii, S. G. Sviataia inkvizitsiia. Moscow, 1927.
Tokarev, S. A. Religioznye verovaniia vostochnoslavianskikh narodov. Moscow-Leningrad, 1957.
Michelet, J. Ved’ma. Moscow, 1912. (Translated from French.)