Wizards and Witches

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

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No: HPFGUIDX C4341
From: catlady_de_los_angeles
Subject: Re: Wizards and Witches
Reply To: [Yahoo! #4326] Re: Wizards and Witches
Date: 7/15/00 3:15 pm  (ET)

> This is my understanding, with a bit of questioning as well. I have
always been under the impression that there is a Witch and a Warlock
(the same thing, but different gender) and a Wizard and a Sorceress
(same thing, different gender) So I am a tad confused that Rowling uses
the terms Witch and Wizard, when I have always believed them to be two
separate titles.

Apparently for JKR and her universe, the difference between witch and
wizard is simply gender. I went on at length about this in msg #4315 in
this archive, which you can access by clicking Messages on the club home
page and going back Prev 40 enough times.

I know that authors like to pair Wizard with Sorceress or Enchantress,
but there really is such a word as Wizardess and there really are such
words as Sorceror and Enchantor, so the genders can have parallel terms.

This of course is in English, which is believed to have the most words
of any language because of the words 'borrowed' from other languages
(I think it was L. Sprague deCamp who said that English is 'the result
of Norman men-at-arms trying to make dates with Saxon barmaids, and no
more legitimate than any of the other results', which is good for us
because if English had been taught in school, it would have kept all the
loathsome declension stuff from Saxon). Enchantor is from Latin, from
'cant-' meaning 'to sing', Sorceror is from French, I believe sorcier
meaning 'dowser', and wizard is from Saxon, wize-ard meaning 'learned
man'. Witch is also from Saxon, from a more vulgar strain in the language,
so scholars do not all agree on the origin. It could also be from 'wise',
it could relate to tying knots (as 'wicker' and 'willow'), it could
relate to 'wicked', it could relate to words left over from shamanism.

So, people on this list who speak French or German or other languages, do
those languages have different words for the male and female magic user?

> What is the difference between a witch and a wizard?

JKR thinks the difference is gender. Some of the Inquisitors thought
the difference was that witches got their magic in exchange for giving
their soul to the Devil while wizards (and wizardesses) got their
magic by studying the laws of nature from great big books in Latin
and Greek. Some historians think the difference is that witches were
lower-class herbalists or magic users who sold their magic cheap to
peasants, while wizards were upper-class astrologers and alchemists who
sold their magic expensively to kings and nobles. Nowdays, the word Witch
(capitalized) is a word for people who practise the religion named Wicca,
which is a Pagan religion that doesn't even HAVE a Devil. I don't know
if there is a modern meaning for the word wizard.