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White witch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
White witch or good witch are qualifying terms in English used to distinguish those helpful witches who do not use magic to harm others from normal witches. It can refer to either fictional characters with such characteristics or to actual practitioners of folk magic called cunning folk or witch doctors; individuals who charged money for removing the supposed effects of witchcraft.
Sir Walter Scott spoke of such a person in his novel Kenilworth (1821):
- You must know that some two or three years past there came to these parts one who called himself Doctor Doboobie, although it may be he never wrote even Magister Artium, save in right of his hungry belly. Or it may be, that if he had any degrees, they were of the devil’s giving; for he was what the vulgar call a white witch, a cunning man, and such like.
The antonym black witch is an entirely modern creation as it was not previously needed; in the past witches were viewed, almost without exception, as malefic, serving as imaginary scapegoats on which diseases and bad luck could be blamed. The terms "white witch" and "good witch" have been known in English from the 16th century but were fairly uncommon in ordinary use except in Devon until fairly recently. Perhaps the most famous "white witch" in modern literature is Glinda the Good Witch in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the film based on it.