7. Warlocks Were Leaders Of Witches
As opposed to a wizard, whose magic was considered to be good or at least benign, a warlock was believed to be a practitioner of dark, evil magic. The word “warlock” probably derives from either an Old English word that means “covenant breaker,” referring possibly to God’s covenant with Christians or from an Old Norse word that means “caller of spirits.” Among the Medieval Scots, the word came to denote the male counterpart to a witch.
Scotland was particularly notorious for witch-hunts that included warlocks. Warlocks were even viewed as the men who led the weaker sex astray into making pacts with the devil. They were often tortured before being burned at the stake in public executions.
Harry Potter might have been better cast as a warlock, minus the part about making a pact with the devil. Even though they were originally believed to be evil, witches were as well, but that fact didn’t stop JK Rowling from using them as practitioners of good magic. In the 1950s television show Bewitched, which was made into a movie in 2004, members of Samantha’s family were warlocks. Though they engaged in plenty of shenanigans, most notably her father against her husband, they weren’t particularly evil.
