Witch

Witch (pronounced wich)

(1) A person, historically either male or female but now especially a woman, who professes or is supposed to practice magic or sorcery; a sorceress (especially popular in mythology and fiction but also associated with certain societies and historical periods and still current in some countries).

(2) In the weird world of the "new age movement", a practitioner of a nature-based religion founded on ancient beliefs, which honors both a male and female divine principle and includes the practice of magic (associated especially with healing).

(3) An informal and derogatory term for an ugly, mean or wicked old woman; a hag.

(4) Used selectively, a fascinating or enchanting woman (usually in the (figurative) sense of "bewitching").

(5) A person who uses a divining rod; dowser (archaic).

(6) In the sense of "witch-hunt", an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion, dishonesty or the like, based usually on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence.

(7) A flatfish, Pleuronectes (or Glyptocephalus) cynoglossus, of North Atlantic coastal waters, having a narrow greyish-brown body marked with tiny black spots.  The family group is Pleuronectidae (plaice, flounders etc)

(8) In geometry, a certain curve of the third order, also known as versiera.

(9) In entomology, the Indomalayan butterfly Araotes lapithis, of the Lycaenidae family.

Pre 900: From the Middle English wicche from the Old English wicce (sorceress, witch (female)), the feminine forms existing in conjunction with wicca (witch, sorcerer, wizard), the masculine deverbative from wiccian (to practice sorcery) from the Proto-Germanic wikkōną.  Related were the West Frisian wikje, wikke (to foretell, warn), the Low German wicken (to soothsay) and the Dutch wikken, wichelen (to dowse, divine).  Root was the primitive Indo-European wik-néh, derivation of weyk- (to consecrate; separate); akin to the Latin victima (sacrificial victim), the Swedish vicka (to move to and fro), the Lithuanian viẽkas (life-force) and the Sanskrit विनक्ति (vinákti) (to set apart, separate out).  Witch, witchcraft, witcher & witchery are nouns; witching is a verb & adjective and witchy is an adjective, the noun plural is witches.

An obviously guilty witch haranguing the court, lithograph of a witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, circa 1692.

The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) does note the generally accepted etymology is not without phonetic or semantic difficulties and suggests some connection with the Old English wigle (divination) and wig & wih (idol), the nouns representing a Proto-Germanic wikkjaz (necromancer) (one who wakes the dead) from the primitive Indo-European weg-yo from weg (to be strong, be lively).  That wicce once had a more specific sense than the later general one of "female magician, sorceress" is suggested by the presence of other words in Old English describing more specific kinds of magical craft.  “Witch doctor” is from circa 1715; from the mid 1830s it was applied to African “healers by means of spells & potions”, soon becoming interchangeable with “medicine man”.  The fear of witches and witchcraft is described as wiccaphobia and neither phobia nor subject has ever been mentioned in the APA’s (American Psychiatric Association) DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) although that’s not unusual, the DSM not listing phobias as distinct diagnostic identities but instead providing diagnostic criteria for categorizing phobias listed under five headings: (1) animal type, (2) natural environment type, (3) blood-injection-injury type, (4) situational type & (5) other types.  Depending on the patient's circumstances, a clinician presumably would place their wiccaphobia in either (4) or (5).

Poster for the movie Warlock (1989).  In Hollywood, warlocks are men and witches are women.

However, although "witchcraft" and "witch" may not appear in the DSM, both terms did once make frequent appearances in the literature of medicine and psychiatry.  Historically, at least some of those accused of practicing witchcraft in the Middle Ages and early modern period are thought to have been experiencing conditions such as severe depression, epilepsy, or psychosis; rather than being condemned as witches, they’d now be diagnosed with a neurological or mental illnesses.  In the modern era, clinicians are trained to detect the difference between true psychotic delusions (a manifestation of irrational phobias) and beliefs a product of cultural or religious conditioning.  Sometimes seriously and sometimes less so, there have been scholars and other critics (including ex-patients) of modern psychiatry who have compared the DSM to the old “witch-hunting” texts, the classic example the Malleus Maleficarum.  Written by German Dominican friar and inquisitor Heinrich Kramer (circa 1430-1505), the widely-read treatise Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches, 1487), not only described the rituals of witchcraft but was also a manual for the identification of witches, documenting methods by which their guilt could be proven (as a prelude to execution).  Scholars now regard Malleus Maleficarum not as original but a kind of “review of the classics” and a codification of many previous works but the publication long exerted much influence on the witch trials of the early modern period.  Kramer was on sound theological and political ground because early as the tenth century the Church had published Canon Episcopi (Canon Law) in which it was made explicit witchcraft and magic were delusions and practitioners (or even believers) were suffering “possession by the Devil”.

To gain a flavour of the Malleus Maleficarum, consider: “What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted in fair colors...The word woman is used to mean the lust of the flesh, as it is said: I have found a woman more bitter than death, and a good woman more subject to carnal lust...Women are naturally more impressionable...Women are intellectually like children...She is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations...Therefore a wicked woman is by her nature quicker to waver in her faith, and consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root of witchcraft...”  One does suspect copies of the Malleus Maleficarum might sit well-thumbed on the bedside tables of Talibs in Kabul and ayatollahs in Tehran.  They know the old ways are best.

The old ways are best: Malleus Maleficarum.

The comparison between Malleus Maleficarum and the DSM is the claim both are guidebooks used by an elite to label and classify nonconformity or social deviance as “abnormal” and thus to be “treated” (sometimes by incarceration).  Structuralists note one interesting aspect of this is the “imprimatur of veracity” provided by the written word, both Kramer’s text and the DSM gaining their authority from being hefty published works.  While Malleus Maleficarum faded from use, the DSM’s seven decade evolution from DSM-I (1952: 130 pages listing 106 mental disorders) to DSM-5-TR (2022: 1152 pages and 298 disorders) has been one of increasing influence to the point that, in the minds of many, it is definitive.  The “mission creep” of the DSM has attracted comment and while whether there’s now “more madness” or what there now is more readily identified and better treated can be debated, the growth of the profession also accounts for some of the spread, doctors sometimes in demarcation disputes about who gets to treat whom: With each addition to the DSM the psychiatrists get to stake their claim to another market segment and in the twenty-first century, the DSM seems as canonical a text as was Malleus Maleficarum in the sixteenth.

In 2015, Nylon ran the story Lindsay Lohan had taken up witchcraft and wished to be consecrated by a coven as a white witch.  Nylon did caution the source of the story was the National Enquirer, a publication sometimes referred to as a NRS (normally reliable source) with some irony; a representative for Ms Lohan released a statement denying she practiced witchcraft.  Published continuously since 1926, since the early 2000s the National Enquirer has been a good source of Lohanic content, its coverage extending to her weight (suggestions of anorexia during “thin phase”), driving history (patchy), being stalked by the Freemasons (verified), feuds (frequent), legal issues (since resolved), family squabbles (legion), hair care (highly recommended), shoe & handbag collections (much envied) and, of course, aspiration to be admitted to a coven of witches (dubious).  

Women being burned at the stake (circa 1580), engraving by Dutch illustrator Jan Luyken (1649–1712).  Widely practiced in parts of Europe, in England, burnings at the stake tended to be restricted to those convicted of heresy, convicted witches usually hanged (if they survived the various "trials by ordeal" used to establish guilt).

The glossary of the Laws of Ælfred (circa 890) translates the Latin necromantia (demonum invocatio) as galdre or wiccecræft and in the Anglo-Saxon poem Men's Crafts, wiccræft appears to mean "skill with horses" so the OED is right to note the contested history but, in the history of the British Isles, the mention in the Laws of Ælfred of witchcraft being exclusively female activity is unique although that sense clearly endured and by the early 1600s, the feminine form was so dominant that the forms "men-witches" or "he-witches" came into use.  Warlock was never a universally accepted masculine form of witch despite the notion in modern popular culture and it’s from wicca that English ultimately gained both wizard and wicked.  Even in the sixteenth century, the implications were blurred, Reginald Scot in his The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) asserting it was synonymous in the English tongue to say either “she is a witch” or “she is a wise woman”.  In the popular imagination there's still a widespread perception witches were burned at the stake and while that was the case in many places (along with other methods of dispatch), in the English-speaking world, because witchcraft was a felony in both England and the American colonies, witches were hanged and not burned.  Witches’ bodies were burned in Scotland, although, just to be sure, they were first strangled to death.  The confusion may have arisen because there were cases of witches being burned at the stake but that was because they'd been convicted also of heresy.

Crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) has never denied practicing witchcraft (digitally altered image).

The extended sense of “young woman or girl of bewitching aspect or manners” was in use by at least 1740 and although that sense has been used both admiringly (of “feminine charms) and as a warning (of the power of a seductress over men) it seems now usually positive and of “ways & means” rather than merely the Paris Hiltonesque “hot”.  It’s certainly more encouraging than the use in the Old Testament in which appears מְכַשֵּׁפָה (mekhashshepheh, in the Hebrew the feminine term for an “enchantress or sorceress”.  The word was from the root כשף (kashaph) and used to refer to those who whispered mystic formulas or cast spells, antics that attracted one of the more famous (and consequential) biblical injunctions: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18; King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611)).  A similar condemnation also appears in Deuteronomy 18:10-12:

10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

The verse “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” echoed through time, the Mosaic legal decree held to command the execution of those practicing sorcery or illicit magic.  In the archaic English of the KJV, “suffer” means “allow or permit”, thus the understanding “Do not allow a sorceress to live”.  However, scripture is open to interpretation and, for thousands of years, priests, theologians (amateur & professional), lawyers and charlatans (there’s some overlap between those categories) have done exactly that and adding to the tangle is the history of variations in translation and meaning-shifts in words.  In the ancient Septuagint (a translation in Ancient Greek), the Hebrew word was translated as pharmakos (a brewer of lethal potions, drugs, or poisons) leading some scholars argue the verse targeted “dark herbalists” (ie those who literally mixed poisons) while others held this was metaphorical and still explicitly proscribed (on pain of death) supernatural sorcery.  The latter (harsher) view is more in accord with the spirit of Deuteronomy in which it was made clear all must follow the teachings in the tradition of the prophet Moses, meaning all divination and magical techniques of enquire must be eliminated on the grounds such things were “spiritual treason”.  For the ancient Israelites, spells and magical incantations were attempts to bypass God's authority by manipulating spiritual forces or a summoning of pagan deities, sorcery thus a form of idolatry that threatened the purity of the community.  Of course the commentaries have always emphasised execution of transgressors must be judicial with the accused granted due process; neither in Exodus or Deuteronomy is licence granted for vigilantism or mob justice.

The historical legacy of Exodus 22:18 was profound and lingered long in Western culture.  It was James I (1566–1625;King of England 1603-1625) who commissioned the translation still influential as the KJV and he was a religious zealot both fearful of and somewhat obsessed with the dangers in witchcraft; translating mekhashepha specifically as “witch” reinforced the secular laws of his time and on both sides of the Atlantic, European inquisitors and American Puritans alike, cited Exodus 22:18 as the primary biblical justification to hunt, torture, and execute thousands (mostly women) accused of witchcraft.  Delivered mostly by the European colonialists, scripture (often selectively quoted) spread to other continents and to this day, Akan Christians in Ghana justify praying for the death and destruction of witches and wizards of the basis of “not suffering witches to live”.  In some places where the scriptural condemnation of witches became better embedded in culture than the companion notion of "due process before punishment", mobs not infrequently assemble and kill those accused of witchcraft, parts of Africa and PNG (Papua New Guinea) especially afflicted.  In some cases the killings are opportunistic and based on other motives including "blood feuds" and economics, inconvenient wives sometimes murdered so a family can gain title to her land.      

Peter Dutton, carrying volume one (of three) of his enemies list (volume two including several witches).

In Australia, Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party 2022-2025) had something of an unfortunate history with text messages (SMS, short message service) including sending one calling a journalist a “mad fucking witch”.  Unfortunately he sent the text to the target of his remarks but fortunately she worked for Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) and thus had to cop it sweet which, with some aplomb, the witch did, even complimenting Mr Dutton for having been a minister who had made "a great contribution to government" which was one way of putting things.  The message was especially interesting because there's an extensively documented library of the links between Freemasonry and witchcraft and, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

Witches and ditches

Witch of the Ditch on broomstick.

Early Reader’s paperback edition of the children's book The Witch of the Ditch by by Steven Butler, illustrated by Nigel Baines.  The early reader series uses a hybrid format in being “stepping stones” designed for children transitioning from picture books to text, the method being associative (illustrations the young reader can identify orally, presented alongside the relevant written word(s)). Appropriately deconstructed, the book is a tale of political conflict, triggered when one witch (Hag of the Crag) moves in next door to another (Witch of the Ditch).  As is notorious, there is in every town room only for one witch so things are not going to go well.  Politicians may be tempted to mine The Witch of the Ditch in the quest for new 3WSs (three word slogans) because that's how political discourse is now done and they’ll find encouraging the publisher’s blurb noting the title is for a “Reading age: 5-7 years”, about the level of comprehension they appear to think most voters have attained.

Ditch Witch at work.

Described by the manufacturer as “The fastest way to drill”, CEA’s Ditch Witch JT21 replaces the previous JT20, the design improvements said to have been “engineered with direct input from contractors and drillers in the field.”  Drills of all types (from the smallest able to put holes in nano-sized objects to the largest used to carve through solid granite when excavating tunnels) are arranged in classes and CEA claim the JT21 “sets a new benchmark for performance, speed, and control in compact drilling”, its “35% faster carriage speed” able to operate at a “blazing 215 feet (66 metres) per minute”, making it “the fastest drill in its class”.  One measure likely novel to those familiar with HP (horsepower) in other contexts is the concept of DHP (downhole horsepower), a measure of the specific efficiency delivered at the critical point (the drill bit); in that it’s analogous with RWHP (rear-wheel horsepower), the traditional metric used by dynamometers quantifying power and a measure more indicative of performance potential than GHP (gross horsepower, what a engine generates in its raw configuration) or NHP (net horsepower, measured with an engine’s accessories attached).  Certainly the Ditch Witch’s stated ratings (21,000 lbs of pullback, 20,000 lbs of thrust, and 2,250 ft-lbs of torque) sound impressive.  The JT21 is also a most modern machine, featuring VAM (Virtually Assisted Make-up, a software-driven pipe handling apparatus that renders redundant floats or sensors).  Pleasingly for those brought up on video games, the JT21 is controlled by a multimode joystick and LCD (liquid crystal display) interface.

Digging a better trench.

Winston Churchill inspecting the progress of project White Rabbit No, 6, Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, England, November 1941.

In “Ditch Witch” CEA came up with a catchy name, one that would have appealed to word-nerd Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955), had there not been a need for secrecy.  The World War II (1939-1945) era White Rabbit No. 6 was an “trench digging” engineering project co-ordinated by the British Admiralty although, as a security measure, the official code-name was changed to “Cultivator No. 6” to make it sound less mysterious and more like just another a piece of agricultural equipment.  It was a military trench-digging machine, an example of the adage “generals are always preparing to fight the last war” and although designed exclusively for army use on (and at least partially under) land, it came under the auspices of the RN (Royal Navy) because it was one of the many “good ideas” from the brain of Churchill who, between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his assumption of the premiership some months later, served as First Lord of the Admiralty (the RN’s political head).  Trenches and artillery had been the two dominant features of World War I (1914-1918) and Churchill had spent some months (1915-1916) in one of the former under fire from the latter while commanding a battalion; before the implications of mechanization and the German’s Blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics were apparent, he assumed the new war in France would unfold something like the old, thus the interest in something which would “revolutionize trench warfare”.

Clipart of sexy Halloween witches (PNG (portable network graphics) format, transparent, 300 DPI (dots-per-inch)) can be downloaded.

Trench warfare however wasn’t repeated so White Rabbit No.6 was soon realized to be already obsolete so the project was abandoned and although the most fully developed of the prototypes did perform according to the design parameters, whether it would have been effective remains doubtful; remarkably, work on these things wasn’t wholly abandoned until 1942.  The “White Rabbit” project codes came from Churchill’s sense of humor, his ideas flowing, as he said: “like rabbits I pull from my hat” and he supported many, some of which were of great military value while others, like the “floating runways” (artificial icebergs made with a mixture of shards of timber & frozen water), were quixotic.  The gestation of the White Rabbit was also an echo of World War I when, in an earlier incarnation as First Lord, Churchill had instructed the Admiralty to begin development of the first “tank”.  The word “tank” was adopted to create the impression the project was about “water tanks” and while it may seem strange to put admirals in charge of what was so obviously a “land weapon”, it was the navy that possessed the expertise in fabricating similar devices (the gun turrets used on warships) and the boat-sized engines that would be used to propel them.

Bronwyn Bishop (b 1942, left), Sophie Mirabella (b 1968) and Tony Abbott (right) at the infamous “Ditch the Witch” protest, 2011.

Tony Abbott (b 1957; Prime Minister of Australia 2013-2015) rarely saw a 3WS he didn’t like and, in 2011, apparently had no compunction in being photographed in front of a placard with the words “Ditch the Witch”, the occasion a “No Carbon Tax” protest, called after Julia Gillard (b 1961; Prime Minister of Australia 2010-2013) had announced such a tax would be imposed, despite having earlier promised there’d be no such tax.  Clearly it must have been a "non-core promise", another Australian contribution to political jargon.  Also displaying the depth of the Australian linguistic imagination (if not grasp of the rules of punctuation) was one reading “Juliar….Bob Browns [sic] Bitch”.  The construct of Juliar was Ju(lia) + liar (alluding to the broken promise) and “Bitch” a reference to the allegation her government was too inclined to be influenced by the Green Party, then led by Dr Bob Brown (b 1944; senator for Tasmania (Australian Greens) 1996-2012, Green party leader 2005-2015).  “Bitch” was also a slur, a snide comment on Dr Brown’s homosexuality.

“Witch Doctor” was  for several successful seasons campaigned in drag racing by Dr Keith Garner (b 1935), a Cherokee, Iowa-based physician.

A 1970 Ford Torino Cobra, it was ordered from the factory explicitly configured to optimize performance over quarter-mile (402 metres) runs: 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre) Super Cobra Jet V8 (J-code), C6 automatic transmission & 3.91 Drag Pack 9 inch rear end (V code).  The styling cues were “borrowed” by Ford Australia for the two-door hardtop version of the Falcon (XA, XB & XC, 1972-1979), the lines proving aerodynamically efficient on even the fastest circuits.  Unfortunately, the second generation Torino (1970-1971), while untroubled on drag strips where speeds didn’t exceed 125 mph (200 km/h), on the big NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) ovals where 200 mph (320 km/h) routinely was approached, the shape induced unexpectedly high drag, despite looking sleeker than its slab-sided predecessor (1968-1969); where possible, racing teams opted to run the old body.

Preaching to the converted: One-time seminarian Mr Abbott gets the message across.

Standing with Mr Abbott, Liberal Party luminaries Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella presumably regarded the words “witch” & “bitch” as “political” rather than “sexist”.  That view wasn’t shared by Ms Gillard who later remarked: “I wasn't shocked that some people had those sentiments…” but was, “…shocked that it was so visibly called forth into the public debate and that it didn't get the sort of odium from mainstream commentators that it should have.”  The signage also rated a mention in her strident “misogyny speech”, delivered in the parliament on 9 October 2012 as a reaction then opposition leader Mr Abbott accusing her of sexism.  Actually, she “had a bit of previous” with sexism (notably the “mincing poodle” affair) but the speech was a good performance and around the planet it went viral.  At the time of the “Ditch the Witch” rally, Ms Gillard of course received the expected support from her ALP (Australian Labor Party) party colleagues although Ms Bishop and Ms Mirabella seem to have been unmoved.  One at the time vocal in her condemnation of the signage was Penny Wong (b 1968), then serving in the Gillard cabinet and, as a woman, she would be expected to be sensitive to hints of misogyny.  Gillard of course had only that to resort to when weaponizing “an identity” whereas Wong could play (1) “the woman card”, (2) the “race card” (being of part-Asian extraction) or “the gay card” (being a lesbian).  Still her support must have been appreciated as gesture of feminist solidarity.  Unfortunately, Gillard’s problems got worse and the rest of the country noticed; so did her party colleagues and, in a leadership spill in June 2013, she lost the leadership, Ms Wong among those voting for the alternative.  Feminist solidarity goes only so far when there’s the threat of a big pay cut and the loss of perks.

Briefly, one of the few pleasures when catching a bus in Melbourne, 2026.

Genuinely a piece of Australian political history, the “Ditch the Witch” 3WS in 2026 made an unexpected return the streets of Melbourne, appearing on bus shelters and on the sides of trucks trundling through the suburbs.  The target this time was Jacinta Allan (b 1973; premier of Victoria since 2023), the lucky recipient of the poisoned chalice of the state’s premiership, handed to her after the retirement of the long-serving Daniel Andrews (b 1972), premier of Victoria 2014-2023.  Several political junkies have been compiling reports with calculations attempting to work out just how much public money has been squandered / stolen / misappropriated / wasted (the terms vary with the author) during the life of the Andrews/Allan government.  While not all the various “incidents” suggest dishonesty (some being mere incompetence), the alleged losses variously are in the thousands, millions or billions.  Ms Allan has made little attempt to address substantive matters (such as the rising state debt) but was most vociferous in her objection to the revival of the “Ditch the Witch” 3WS with her scowling visage appended; within 48 hours the offending images had been banished from the streets although whether that was achieved with threats, persuasion or the premier casting a spell isn’t certain.  In an indication her government had a focus on “high priority issues”, it was announced Aus$134,000 (US$95,000) had been allocated to erect a bronze statue of Mr Andrews.

Despite the impression created by popular culture (especially film & television), the “witch = female, warlock = male” thing is quite modern and thus historically misleading; Ms Gillard and Ms Allan are clearly very modern, thus their equating “witch” with “woman” and its use as a slur as sexism.  For most of the history of the English language, a “witch” could be male or female although the record does suggest women were more often accused of witchcraft, while “warlock” often was not applied to male witches.  In the Old English (certainly before circa 1000), the most common forms were wicca (male practitioner of witchcraft) and wicce (female practitioner) both from the same Germanic root; by the late Middle English (and after the Norman Conquest (1066), gradually the forms merged in pronunciation, the spelling shifting to reflect this, “witch” coming to denote either sex.  That’s why there came to be no need for a separate masculine noun.

Macbeth and the three witches (1760), oil on canvas by Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788).  Completed during the artist's “first English period” (1752-1762), historians believe this to be the first European painting depicting theatrical characters in a landscape and in From Rococo to Revolution: Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting (1966), English art historian Sir Michael Levey (1927–2008; director of the National Gallery 1973-1986) notes the work as a fine example of “the beginnings of the Neo-Gothic under the influence of the theory of the sublime.”  When writing The Tragedy of Macbeth (Macbeth, circa 1606) William Shakespeare (1564–1616) had no doubts witches were women.

In the Laws of Ælfred, witchcraft explicitly was singled out as a woman's craft, the practitioners of which were not welcome to live among the Western Saxons but that can’t have been persuasive and it’s clear from later legal and theological writings (fields in which there was long cross-fertilization) that men were a capable as women of practicing witchcraft (the English Witchcraft Act (1604) refers only to “any person”).  Those accused (and sometimes executed) overwhelmingly were women and the numbers in Europe were striking (albeit with wide regional variations), the margin over decades sometimes as skewed as 90-10%.  Of course these are raw numbers from the surviving historic record so while there’s (probably not unreasonably) now the perception women disproportionately were targeted for prosecution, it’s not impossible there simply were more women than men practicing witchcraft.  Popular culture is just as divergent from history in the evolution of “warlock”.  Warlock was from the Old English wǣrloga (oath-breaker; traitor; deceiver) and was related to the notion of “belie one's pledge” rather than magic spells but because of the Biblical association of “deceiver” with Satan, in certain medieval religious texts, wǣrloga was used to mean “the Devil”.

Witches and Witchcraft in Victorian Britain by Emma Woodhouse is scheduled for publication in April 2027.  In Jane Austen's (1775-1817) novel Emma (1815), Emma Woodhouse was the titular protagonist of almost 21, described by the author as “a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.”

The origin of “warlock” being equated with “man practising witchcraft” seems to be in early sixteenth century Scots English but even there it was never the standard form with the church and court records of the time listing men so accused as “witches”, as was the case in England and Wales.  Charmingly, literary historians trace the emergence of “warlock” meaning “a male witch” to the rise of Gothic novel, a form which enjoyed a spike in popularity between the 1760s and 1820s; witches were mentioned in Gothic novel and Warlocks were not but from those beginnings came the “ghost” & “horror” genres and historians have concluded the Victorian writers, mining the occult, folklore, medievalism, picked-up “warlock” for no better reason than it sounded archaic and had the “picturesque” quality novelists like.  From this improbable beginning, “warlock” became vested with an almost wholly bogus “history” readers allowing themselves to be convinced stretched back a thousand years or more.  Victorian novels were however a niche and what’s thought most to have reinforced the popular perception was twentieth century cinema, an industry which cemented the witch/warlock dichotomy, adhered to in fantasy fiction, role-playing games, comics and popular culture of all forms.

Pheasant

Pheasant (pronounced fez-uhnt)

(1) Any of various long-tailed gallinaceous birds of the family Phasianidae, especially Phasianus colchicus (ring-necked pheasant), having a brightly-coloured plumage in the male: native to Asia but now widely dispersed.

(2) Any of various other gallinaceous birds of the family Phasianidae, including the quails and partridges

(3) Any of several other gallinaceous birds, especially the ruffed grouse.

(4) The meat of such a bird, served as food.

1250–1300: From the Middle English fesaunt & fesant, from the Anglo-French fesaunt, from the Old French fesan, from the Latin phāsiānus, from the Ancient Greek φᾱσιανός (phāsiānós órnis) (Phasian bird; bird of the river Φᾶσις (Phâsis (in Colchis in the Caucauses were the birds existed in prolific number)), named after the River Phasis, in which flows into the Black Sea at Colchis in the Caucauses.  It replaced the native Old English wōrhana, a variant of mōrhana.  The ph- from the Greek was restored in English by the late fourteenth century while the wholly unetymological -t exists because of confusion with –ant (a suffix of nouns, formed from present participle of verbs in first Latin conjugation (ancient, pageant, tyrant, peasant; also talaunt, a former Middle English variant of talon, etc.).  The Latin was the source also of the Spanish faisan, the Portuguese feisão, the German Fasan and the Russian bazhantu; the Welsh was ffesant and the Cornish fesont.  In England, Pheasant was used as surname from the mid-twelfth century (and assumed occupational (pheasant farmer)).  The form in the Medieval Latin was fasianus.  A pheasantry is a place for keeping and rearing pheasants and the most common collective noun for a group of pheasants is bevy (less commonly a bouquet (when flushed), or nye.  Pheasant & pheasantry are nouns, pheasantless & pheasantlike are adjectives; the noun plural is pheasants.

Flawless food's oven roasted pheasant with herb butter.

Ingredients:

1 x 700 gram pheasant

30 grams of butter

1 teaspoon of garlic puree

1 teaspoon of Dried Thyme

Salt & Pepper

1 small Onion (red, brown or white)

1 small apple or citrus fruit (optional in lieu of onion)

6 Stuffing balls (optional)

Preparation:

Remove pheasant and butter from refrigerator approximately 40 minutes before cooking (allows butter to soften and pheasant to attain room temperature).

Preheat oven to 210℃ (fan) / 230℃ conventional.

Pat dry pheasant using paper towel.

Place softened butter, garlic puree and dried thyme; mash together with fork.

Rub garlic and herb butter blend all over pheasant including inside body cavity.

Chop onion in half and place inside the body cavity (the fruit can be used for a slightly sweeter effect (the placement is mainly to keep the flesh moist).

Generously season pheasant with salt & pepper, the place in oven roasting tray.

Roasting process:

Start cooking at the preheated temperature.

After ten (10) minutes cooking, lower heat to 180℃ (fan) / 200℃ (conventional) and cook for a further 40-50 minutes.  Note the timings are based on a 700 gram pheasant; a larger bird may need to be roasted for another 10-15 minutes.  If using a meat thermometer, internal temperature of pheasant should reach 64°C at the thickest part of the breast and thigh should reach 74 °C.

Add 6 Stuffing Balls to the tray if using, timing them according to their supplied instructions.

Serving:

Remove pheasant from oven, cover loosely with foil and allow it to rest for 20–30 minutes.  Skin should be a golden-brown.

Carve pheasant by cutting through both the legs, then slice down either side of the breastbone (first removing wishbone first will make that easier).

Serve as desired but traditional accompaniments include roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, Brussels sprouts, honey roast parsnips, stuffing balls and gravy.

The golden pheasants

Chrysolophus pictus (the golden pheasant or Chinese pheasant).

There are more than two dozen taxonomic species within the family Phasianidae (pheasants), one of which is the golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus, known also as the “Chinese pheasant”), a game bird native to the forests of mountainous areas of western China.  The plumage of the males is famously vibrant which makes it a favorite among bird watchers and photographers while the female is a duller-mottled brown plumage, something common among many avian species including the peacock (male) & peahen (female), the evolutionary advantage for the females being the fine camouflage it afforded against the forest floor.

Nazi Kreisleiter (District Leader) standard four pocket open collar tunic (circa 1940).  The party’s regulations about uniforms first appeared in 1920 and the details were often revised until things were standardized in 1939.

In the Third Reich (1933-1945) the term Goldfasane (golden pheasants) was a derisive nickname used of high-ranking members of the Nazi Party (and their wives), the name an allusion to (1) the golden hue of the fabric of the party uniform, (2) their tendency to appear well fed (al la a plump pheasant fattened for slaughter) at a time when much of the population was living under food rationing and (3) their ostentation and self-importance (likened to a colorful and strutting pheasant).  That brown became the "official" color of the party  wasn't a kind of proto-1970s fashion choice.  When Germany lost its African and tropical Pacific colonies after World War I (1914-1948), a huge stock of khaki uniforms and other kit became available as "army-surplus" and these the party purchased at low cost.  As time progressed and the uniforms came to be tailored, as a general principle, the more exalted the office, the more golden the shade of fabric used for the garb.  Even the party headquarters in Munich became known as the Braunes Haus (Brown House) and the symbolism of its destruction in 1943 by Allied bombing wasn't lost on the local population although the British, even then sensitive to criticism of "area bombing" of civilian targets, made little attempt to exploit the success for propaganda purposes.  On the site of the long-demolished Braunes Haus, the Bavarian government in 2015 opened the NS-Dokumentationszentrum (NSDOKU, the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism), a  museum with a focus on the history and consequences of the National Socialist (Nazi) regime and the role of Munich as its Hauptstadt der Bewegung (capital of the movement).  

Portrait of Auguste Escoffier (1846–1935).

The decoration is the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order of merit, awarded to both civilians and the military.  It was established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815)).  In the internal logic of French culture it was a wholly appropriate honor for a chef though to the south not all would have approved: Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) had expressed his disgust at the decadence of the modern Italian people, believing they had been seduced by French ways into “elevating cooking to the status of high art”, declaring he would never allow Italy to descend to the level of France, a country ruined by “alcohol, syphilis and journalism”.

The Brigade de cuisine (kitchen brigade) was a hierarchical organizational chart for commercial kitchens, codified from earlier practices by French chef, Georges-Auguste Escoffier who, following service in the French army, had refined and codified the the kitchen structure first documented in the fourteenth century.  The military-type chain-of-command became formalized but what was novel was what he dubbed the chef de partie system, an organizational model based on sections which were both geographically and functionally defined.  His design was intended to avoid duplication of effort and facilitate communication.  The economic realities of technological innovation, out-sourcing to external supply chains and the changing ratio of labour costs to revenue have meant even the largest modern kitchens now use a truncated version of the Escoffien system although the sectional chef de partie structure remains.  In the pre-modern era, Escoffier’s idealized structure was adopted only in the largest of exclusive establishments or the grandest of cruise liners and, like the Edwardian household, is a footnote in sociological, organizational and economic history.  In the late 1870s, after army service of some seven years, Monsieur Escoffier opened his own restaurant in Cannes.  It was called Le Faisan d'Or (The Golden Pheasant).

Kiji-shō (きじ章; Order of the Golden Pheasant).

There is also the Golden Pheasant Award (きじ章 (kiji-shō) or 金鳳賞 (Kinpōshō)), the highest award for adult leaders in the Scout Association of Japan and although it was first conferred in 1952, there’s no record of whether the earlier sardonic German slang was discussed when deciding on a name.  Officially awarded by the Chief Scout of Japan, recipients are chosen by a selection committee (an institution at which the Japanese excel) on the basis of their eminent achievement and meritorious service to the Association for a period of at least twenty years.  Most awards have been granted to Japanese citizens but the distinction may be granted to any member of a scout association affiliated with the WOSM (World Organization of the Scout Movement).  The (avian) golden pheasant has symbolic significance in Japanese culture where pheasants (particularly the green pheasant (Phasianus versicolor), Japan's national bird) have been revered for their grace and connection to nature; they convey an aura of prestige and distinction due to the majestic appearance.  The award consists of a medallion depicting a stylized golden pheasant, suspended from a white ribbon with two red stripes, worn around the neck.  The attendant uniform ribbon (worn above the left breast pocket), consists of two red stripes on a white background with a 5 mm golden device of the Japanese scout emblem.

Girl Scout icon Lindsay Lohan wearing an honorary Order of the Golden Pheasant.  (Digitally altered image from Flaunt Issue 195, November 2024, original photograph by the Morelli Brothers).

It is of course a great honor to join the exclusive club of those with a Golden Pheasant but the evidence does suggest it’s something of a kiss of political death for those statesmen (Golden Pheasants a male thing) so dubbed, their careers ending often not well.  Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) was awarded his in 1953 during a visit to Japan while VPOTUS, the brief ceremony conducted in Tokyo after his luncheon address to the America-Japan Society.  In 1974, Mr Nixon was forced to resign the presidency after revelations of his conduct during the Watergate Scandal.

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980; the last Shah of Iran 1941-1979) gained his Golden Pheasant in 1957.  In 1979 he was overthrown in the revolution which brought to power Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran, 1979-1989) and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.  Also honored in the same year was Sir Walter Nash (1882–1968; prime-minister of New Zealand 1957-1960); he lost the 1960 general election and never regained power.  A royal recipient was Constantine II (1940–2023; the last King of Greece 1964-1973) who was honored upon assuming the throne in 1964.  Constantine was forced into exile after a military putsch in 1967 (the so-called “Colonels' Coup”) with the monarchy abolished in 1973, something confirmed by two subsequent referenda (1973 & 1974).

Golden Pheasant aspirant: A Japanese scout pack leader (left) with his pack of cub scouts, circa 1964.

Gerald Ford (1913–2006; VPOTUS 1973-1974 and POTUS 1974-1977) was in 1974 created a Golden Pheasant (while VPOTUS) and he went on to lose the 1976 presidential election.  He did however have the satisfaction of knowing not only did the man who beat him (Jimmy Carter (1924-2024; POTUS 1977-1981)) never become a Golden Pheasant, but also turned out to be “a bit of a turkey”.  Paras Bir Bikram Shahdev (b 1971; last Crown Prince of Nepal, heir apparent to the throne 2001-2008) became a Golden Pheasant in 2005.  In 2001, there was what is a now uncommon act of regicide known as the Durbar Hatyakanda (Nepalese royal massacre) that was actually a family squabble, the assassin of nine members of the dynasty (including the king & queen) being Crown Prince Dipendra (1971-2001) who, by virtue of the constitutional arrangements, for three days reigned while in a coma before succumbing to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Subsequently, there was a peaceful transition to a republic and in 2008 the world’s last Hindu monarchy was abolished.  Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) was the last POTUS to become a recipient and his second term was tainted by Iran-Contragate affair.  Given the history, it may be the US State Department has instructed the ambassador to Tokyo quietly to inform the chief scout POTUSs would prefer not to become Golden Pheasants but a gift like a ceremonial woggle warmly would be received.

Mori san explains.

Yoshirō Mori san OGP (centre) meeting the official mascots (boy in blue, girl in pink) for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, Tokyo, 2018.  While serving as president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, an international human rights advocacy group awarded him a “gold medal” for sexism after he complained women members of the committee “...talked too much” due to their “strong sense of rivalry. If one says something, they all end up saying something.”  

Beating the drum: Sanae Takaichi san with drum kit.  In the Japan of 2026, a woman can become prime minister but can neither reign as empress nor receive an Order of the Golden Pheasant.

As Mori san's LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) colleagues know, women have little to say worth hearing but so depleted are the party's stocks of estimable men, in 2025 they had to endure the humiliation of Sanae Takaichi san (b 1961) taking the party presidency and thus becoming the nation's first female prime minister.  To add insult to injury, in 2026 she called an election and won a landslide victory, giving the LDP its highest ever count of seats in the Diet's lower house, meaning attention now turns to the next upper house election, pencilled in for mid-2028.  Upper house elections are no longer the sleepy non-news events of old because if Takaichi san can emulate her electorate success and deliver the LDP a companion two-thirds majority, the path to change the constitution is opened, something that will with great interest be watched from Beijing and the White House, both places with opinions on anything that might permit the JSDF (Japan Self Defence Forces, on paper a potent military force) to become more "adventurous".  With Takaichi san's victories, the LDP men know they have lost face but in July 2026 they had the satisfaction of succeeding in their conspiracy with the mandarins of the Imperial Household (of which the LDP is a kind of branch office) to ensure it remains impossible for a woman to sit on the Emperor's throne, a thought as much an affront to them as would be a female pope to the Roman Curia.  

Yoshirō Mori (森 喜朗, Mori Yoshirō san, b 1937; prime minister of Japan 2000-2001) actually anticipated the “curse of the Golden Pheasant”, leaving office after a gaff-prone two year term some time before he gained the award in 2003.  Mori san was notable for his consistently low approval ratings while prime-minister and most public opinion polls towards the end of his tenure hovered between 7-12% of Japanese voters having a positive view of his premiership.  Mori san had however been a fly-half (first five-eighth in New Zealand's quirky naming system) when playing for the prestigious Waseda University rugby team so for a while he just put his head down and ploughed-on.  That lasted until shortly after the publication of one poll reporting he had received a zero (0%) rating, believed to be the lowest suffered by any politician since polling became (more-or-less) scientific in the 1940s.  At breakfast, it can’t have been much fun for Mori san; he’d have just started to enjoy his gohan (steamed rice), misoshiru (miso soup) yakizakana (grilled fish), tsukemono (pickled vegetables), tamagoyaki (rolled omelette) and ryokucha (green tea), only to open the morning paper and find out nobody in the country liked him.  Shortly after that, he advised his LDP colleagues he would soon resign and they should conclude the (already well-advanced) plotting and scheming to find his successor.  Still, as a consolation, Mori san has his Golden Pheasant.

Pheasant wars: A golden pheasant and a Lady Amherst's pheasant contesting occupancy of a rock.

Pheasant Plucking

The pheasant features in a favorite schoolboy rhyme, said to have origins in an eighteenth century English village where it was composed by Elias, a wandering bard performing at one of the hamlet's “grand pheasant festivals”; he’d been much impressed by the efficient and rhythmic plucking of pheasants by champion pheasant plucker Tom Fletcher.  Whether or not that story is true isn’t known but it (and other variations) is a common tale.  In its modern form the tongue-twister appears usually as:

I'm not the pheasant plucker,
I'm only the pheasant plucker's son,
But I'll keep on plucking pheasants
'Till the pheasant plucker comes.

The verse was soon as much a part of the festivals as the pheasant plucking proper and was popular drinking game, those making a mistake during a recital having to drink a pint of ale before having another attempt.  The extended version read:

I'm not a pheasant plucker,
I'm a pheasant plucker's mate,
And I'm only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's late.
 
Plucking pheasants is a pleasure
when the pheasant plucker's near,
But when pheasants pluck at pheasants,
then the plucking's rather queer.
 
So, if I'm plucking pheasants,
where the pleasant pheasants roam,
I'll pluck enough for supper
till the pheasant plucker's home.
 
And when the pheasant plucker comes,
we'll pluck them side by side,
Through pleasant plains and pheasant fields
where pheasants love to hide.