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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.religion.wicca,alt.wicca,alt.pagan,alt.religion.wicca,alt.religon.pagan From: Joseph StifelSubject: Re: Warlocking?? Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 06:04:31 GMT lorax666 wrote: > 50030301 VII > > on "warlock" and the novel "warlocking" > ========================================= > > > to warlock > > which apparently means "to black ball" or "ostracize, > excommunicate from one's social niceties, etc.". is this > relatively new? > > Joseph : > > as a dictionary definition of "warlock" is "traitor".... > > naw, the DEFINITION in lots of dictionaries is 'male witch', > which I think is funny. yeah, the etymology has oath-breaker > from the Old English (~liar). from my websters: warlock (wor lik), n. 1. a man aided by the Devil in practicing magic arts; sorcerer. 2. a fortuneteller ....(who knew?)..... or conjuror. [ME warloghe, -lach. OE. waeroga oath breaker, devil. equiv. to waer -covenant + loga -betrayer (deriv. of l(e)ogan to lie)] from the Oxford etymology dictionary: warlock traitor (archaic), scoundrel; The Devil (archaic); savage or monstrous creature OE; sorcerer. wizard XIV century. OE waerloga (=OS warlogo), f. OE. war -covenant = OHG. wara truth. ON. varar pl. solemn promise, vow. and something i don't understand grade of the base of the leogan LIE. ME. warlow(e) (repr. OE. warloga) was superseded by the SC. var. warlo(c)k in the 16th century. Traitors are usually executed, however in the case of a traitorous minion of the devil this may be a little more difficult to accomplish, unless one is betraying The Devil and then i think He would deal with it more effectively than a disgruntled internet poster. If one is hunting down a sorcerer one better be prepared to have sorcery used against one. -- Joseph ( That old Son of a Witch ) Count de Money. Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!sjc70.webusenet.com!news.webusenet.com!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: willdockery@blackplanet.com (Will Dockery) Newsgroups: alt.lucky.w,alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan,alt.religion.wicca Subject: "Warlock" - Old Norse "var'lokkur," : Spirit Song! Date: 2 Mar 2003 18:01:57 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 166 Message-ID: <2883cd71.0303021801.6e847ddc@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.214.81.166 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1046656918 28019 127.0.0.1 (3 Mar 2003 02:01:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 3 Mar 2003 02:01:58 GMT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.lucky.w:14277 alt.magick:339533 alt.magick.tyagi:38139 alt.pagan:341713 alt.religion.wicca:661811 "Warlock" from the Old Norse "var'lokkur," : Spirit Song! In the Norse, it was the word for: Spirit Song! It's pretty well known my affection for the Norse Gods, Balduur in particular... so it goes against the grain (the word Warlock came to be "bad" because the Brits said so... you see, the Norse Vikings used to invade England every year or so, so a Warrior Poet would be considered not so great... kind of see the drift?) Warlocks apparently worship both Goddess and God. (Collected through the web): "Warlock (rarely used, for male Witches) is from the Old Norse varlokkur, spirit song (not oath-breaker). 03.10.00 / Sarah Elaine / rainbow_ga@w... Maybe you can help me with an answer, I hope. I have heard that Warlock did not always mean "oath breaker". Old Norse word was "vardlokkur", which means ,"Guard of the gates of knowledge." It would be very interesting if you or any of your members have any more information on this subject. 05.10.00 / Dietmar Nix / d.nix@g... Digging in names of the ancient world, one seldom meets postmodern phantasy like the "guard of the gates of knowledge". Such names better fit to Hollywood since the early eighties. I regard it as very unlikely to estimate that old folks could have had such sort of worms in their brain while giving a name for a place. At least, the word "Vardlokkur" does not include any slight hint to the given explanation. Having English as part of the Westgerman languages, finding it settled by Angeln and Sachsen coming from a region today north Germany, I just compare Warlock with the early states of middle- high German representing the medieval state of language after the first phonetic shift combining the Westgerman languages. So Warlock seems to be better explained with "vart / verte" what is the venture either for travel or for robbery. The "lokkur" could be regarded in connection with "loch", what meant a hidden place. Therefore Warlock could be understood as the hide-spot for robbing or war ventures. This also better reflects the state of mind, present in this region in early times of war with the old celts of Britannica. 06.10.00 / Sarah Elaine / rainbow_ga@w... Thank you for your information. Still I find that in my journey of the name Warlock is from the Old Norse vardlokkur, "spirit song" (not Oath-breaker"). The magik of the Warlock was/is to ward off evil spirits and to "lock" or "bind" them up, keeping wisdom safe. In the Scots dialect the word Warlock means a `cunning man` or `male white witch`, it is rarely used today. In most part due to the Anglo-saxon meaning, `oath breaker`. This "label" has caused Warlock to be seen as a derogatory title. History of `witches`, will always , to a great degree, be a mystery. I feel this leads to a goal that can never be fully attained, but that can be approached without limit. 05.10.00 / Dietmar Nix / d.nix@g... Good hints on the Norse context. We agree, that "oath-breaker" is obviously not the background of Warlock. Neither oath nor break is given inside this term, therefore is result of analogy to another term via meaning, like sketched in your hints on Scotland. I only canīt get a link between "vard" and "spirit song". In medieval time this is not tracable at the continent with a state of language still close to the Northern roots. Unfortunately not finding Warlock on a map of the British island I canīt tell whether it is situated in the North or South. Maybe the language of the Celts had been different from the Norse. For sure the language of the Saxons and Angels had been close to the Norse, but both tribes conquered the South of Britain replacing the Roman culture, that ended up at the Hadrianīs Wall South of Scotland, making the borderline to the old Celtic culture, also in later times. Observation: "lokkur" is close to the Roman "loquor" (speaking) and "vart" meant the adventurous travel, so that the "vardlokkur" would be a bard, singing stories of adventures. Bards sang their stories and didīnt tell them. Maybe this is the "spirit song"? "Spirituals" are not known in the Germanic ancient world, they came up first in the mystics of Middle Ages. That is much too late for this part of language history. History of language is a mystery as our cultures donīt trace back in written facts that far. But the mystery-zone starts before Middle Ages that is earlier than the 7th century. Those times donīt concern the magic-hunt, that took place about 1000 years later. 15.10.00 / Willem de Blécourt / willem@p... My UNIVERSAL DICTIONARRY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (from 1936) explains "Warlock" as: `traitor' or `sorcerer', derived from the Old English "waer" (truth) and "loga" (liar). In German these would be "Wahr" und "Luege", thus: someone who lies the truth, or presents lies as truth, or makes truth out of lies. I have an instinctive, post-modern liking for this kind of interpretation: it sounds completely magical. 17.10.00 / Bill Ellis / wce2@p... According to my old etymological source, the Middle English forms of the word were "warlawe" or "warloghe" with the Anglo-Saxon form being "waerloga," meaning "traitor" not "magician." There may be an Old Norse word "vardlokkur" that is superficially similar, but the "d" that would make the first part cognate with "ward" (= door, gate) does not appear in the early records. So the first root is "waer" (= an oath to be faithful or truthful; G: Wahr[heit]) Likewise, the consonant sound for the word "loc" or "lokke" (= something that guards a door or keeps it shut) was already a hard K sound in Anglo-Saxon, not the soft gutteral "w" "gh" or "g" sound attested in the manuscripts where the word is actually attested. So the second root is "leogan" ("[tell a ] lie"; G: luegen) not "loc" ("lock"). So as romantic as "ward-locker" and "robber's hole" sound, the traditional "oath-breaker" derivation is probably correct: "waer" = sworn allegiance to one's overlord, religious vows to one's God, + "leogan" (lie, violate trust, deceive, be unfaithful), thus one who has broken his vows to the Lord and secretly made a pact with His enemy, a traitor to God, a devil worshipper. Warlock Another definition of the word was most commonly used up the eastern side of England, and especially in the North East, taken from Old Norse rather than Old English, and comes from "varth-lokkr" meaning (essentially) "one who locks (something) in" or "one who encloses" and is used for an exorcist or a magician who traps and disposes of unwanted entities. As such, it is a term of honour. Still other definitions include the claim that the word refers to a scalplock of hair worn as a marker by one who could see the wyrd. The word is still used in it's common dictionary definition of a male witch. People on various sides of the debate argue vehmently that one or the other of these definitions is completely right, or completely wrong. Warlock The word warlock is derived from the Middle English word "warloghe," and Old English word "wrloga," which meant an oath breaker during the medieval times. The word is from two words: wr (meaning a pledge) and logan (meaning to lie). In modern fantasy, warlocks are often just another word for spell- caster, and are often assumed to be evil. In Dungeons and Dragons, warlock is a title given to experienced magicians. The television show "Bewitched" used the term "warlock" for male witches, and it's probably through the show's popularity that this misinterpretation flourished. Another story of how the word came to be associated with witchcraft is this: In the late 1500's a Scot went against the wishes of his clan a became a catholic priest. Well this did not sit well with his clan so he was cast out. This however did not cause him to be called a warlock ( WARLOCK : Gaelic/ Scottish for traitor. ). During an outbreak of so-called witchcraft, when people accused others of being witches to keep themselves from being burned, someone named this scottish priest as a witch. I could not find out if he was burned or escaped but the text did make note that more than 50 people did. The priest's clan banished him, branded him a warlock (traitor), and no longer spoke his name. Another definition of the word is said to have originated on the eastern side of England, and especially in the North East, taken from Old Norse rather than Old English, and comes from "varth-lokkr" meaning (essentially) "one who locks (something) in" or "one who encloses" and is used for an exorcist or a magician who traps and disposes of unwanted entities. As such, it is a term of honour. Further definitions include the claim that the word refers to a scalplock of hair worn as a marker by one who could see the wyrd. The word is still used in its common dictionary definition of a male witch or sorceror. People on various sides of the debate argue vehmently that one or the other of these definitions is completely right, or completely wrong. The word Warlock became associated with one who had made a pact with the devil.
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