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White witch or good witch are qualifying terms in English used to distinguish practitioners of folk magic for benevolent purposes from practicioners of actual malevolent witchcraft.^[1] Related terms are "cunning-folk" and French devins-guérisseurs "seer-healers".

During the Early Modern European witch-hunts, many practicioners of folk magic that did not see themselves as witches, but as healers or seers, were convicted of witchcraft (Éva Pócs' 'sorcerer witches'): many English 'witches' convicted of consorting with demons seem to have been cunning folk whose fairy familiars had been demonised;^[2][3] and over half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers.^[4] Some of the healers and diviners historically accused of witchcraft have considered themselves mediators between the mundane and spiritual worlds, roughly equivalent to shamans.^[5] Such people described their contacts with fairies, spirits or the dead, often involving out-of-body experiences and travelling through the realms of an 'other-world'.^[6] Beliefs of this nature are implied in the folklore of much of Europe, and were explicitly described by accused witches in central and southern Europe. Repeated themes include participation in processions of the dead or large feasts, often presided over by a female divinity who teaches magic and gives prophecies; and participation in battles against evil spirits, 'vampires' or 'witches' to win fertility and prosperity for the community.^[7]

In literature

Sir Walter Scott spoke of a "white witch" in his novel Kenilworth (1821):

You must know that some two or three years past there came to these parts one who called himself Doctor Doboobie, although it may be he never wrote even Magister Artium, save in right of his hungry belly. Or it may be, that if he had any degrees, they were of the devil’s giving; for he was what the vulgar call a white witch, a cunning man, and such like.

Perhaps the most famous "white witch" in modern literature is Glinda the Good Witch in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the film based on it.

Notes

References

• Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), p. 534.

See also

• Cunning folk
• witch doctor
• white magic
• Black and white dualism