Witch Mother/doctor

[ashton_albright]

In my story I have a witch that in effect took care of a village right around the turn of the first century in England (1000 a.d. or c.e.).  I have been trying to find if there was any honorifics entitled to that position.  I found the term witch mother once, but it was in reference to another time period.

Was that even something they would

Comments

[transemacabre]

Anglo-Saxons had a well-developed concept of families, complete with seperate words for every relative.

Your witch will have had a Modor and Faedar (mother and father) and perhaps a Sweostor and Brothor, too. Her mother's mother was her Modrige and her mother's father was her Eam. Her father's mother was called Fathu and her father's father was Faedera.

Maybe your witch has a sunu (son) and dohtor (daughter) of her own. Or maybe she just has a niece (nefa) and nephew (nift) from her sister or brother.

[weirdnessdk]

I know this is a bit off-topic but i know that in Scandinavia at this time you wouldn't call a "witch" a witch. and you wouldn't call him/her a wise man/wise woman. these are later terms. they would call these people something like "the man that knows about herbs" or "the woman that can make your illness go away" or "the guy that talks with nature" or something like that.

the reason i mention this is that i'm pretty sure that if this wouldn't count for the entire England i'm certain that it'd count in the Danelaw and the areas near the Danelaw could be adopting these ideas/ways of talking about "witches".

knowing that this is kind of off-topic i am aware that you might not be able to use this info for much... i just thought i'd mention it anyway.

[enleve]

This is a little off topic, because it deals with events 500 years later in North America, but you might like to read a book called Disguised as the Devil: How Lyme Disease Created Witches and Changed History by M. M. Drymon. The author talks about how the distinctive bulls-eye rash was thought to be the mark of the devil or something like that, and how women's clothing was more likely to allow tics to bite than men's clothing. It's a perspective on witch hunts and witchcraft that I hadn't encountered before.

[randomstasis]

Agreeing with other comments re "witches" and magic in this period, also depending on where you are, they might not even be Anglo Saxon. This is the Viking/Danelaw period, and there are still Celtic areas too.
that said,
You may be looking for the term "spaewife", these should help. Lots of links and references.
http://witchcraft.englatheod.org/spa.html http://www.stevepollington.com/books.html http://witchcraft.englatheod.org/witchcraft.html http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Hamid.htm
eta- oops! links here..
http://witchcraft.englatheod.org/runes.html

[kaizopp]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunning_folk_in_Britain

Look up the cunning folk, seen as distinct from witches. (witches=harmful; cunning folk=useful)

[syntinen_laulu]

Only much, much later. This is a modern distinction.