A warlock is a male practitioner of witchcraft.

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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

'' wǣrloga'', which meant "breaker of oaths" or "deceiver" and was given special application to the devil around 1000. In early modern

Scots Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: * Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland * Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland * Scoti, a Latin na ...

, the word came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (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 Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

literature and ultimately 20th-century popular culture. A derivation from the Old Norse ''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 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