Misconception, misuse of the word "witch" and "witchcraft" and the false belief that witches are generally women have led to our present understanding that witchcraft is generally evil. Perhaps fairytale stories have something to do with this as it was mostly in those stories where witches are defined as evil (evil witch, wicked witch or bad witch) and that whenever the word witch is mentioned, it is always a woman. The church during the Inquisition Period did not originally mention "witchcraft" but "heresy" and anyone who practices heresy is called a heretic. But somewhere along the way the Anglo-Saxon word wicca (a contraction of "witega", meaning a prophet or sorcerer) became the source of the term "witch", which in turn became associated with "heresy".
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