Terminology

[dyingenglish]

Sponsor Messages

We were playing D&D the other day and i chose the Warlock class. How Warlocks are described in D&D 4.0 and in WoW, a warlock is a magic user that gets their powers by striking deals with demons and other mystical creatures. Warlocks are often seen as being evil wizards. In reality, Warlocks are witchs and wizards that have been banished fro their coven, so evil? usually but not necesarily. I'm trying to make sense out of all the different terms for "magic users" and the roles they've played in history.

---

When i wake up everything will be all right...

[scarygirl67]

I wish I could help you...I'm mainly responding to keep the topic up at the front...I think it's a good one. I know that witchywoman and a couple of other members have educated themselves extensively on this subject, and I hope one of them sees it and offers some knowledge on it.

[Graveyard Hound]

Been reading all the comments from "Wicca" , group types or singular, aand noted that none of the postings began and ended with the "traditional", "Blessed Be", spoken on meeting and greeting or "Merry Met". Maybe a practioner and not really interested in a "coven type" of practice. It just struck me as odd to read comments about "wicca", a pc form of "witchcraft", and see ssome of the basics left out. Guess it depends on which type of "school" one received their training in, if any training at all. After 10 yrs of practing and study, somethings just stand out when omitted.

[WitchMom78]

(11-05-2009 11:21 AM)dyingenglish Wrote:  We were playing D&D the other day and i chose the Warlock class. How Warlocks are described in D&D 4.0 and in WoW, a warlock is a magic user that gets their powers by striking deals with demons and other mystical creatures. Warlocks are often seen as being evil wizards. In reality, Warlocks are witchs and wizards that have been banished fro their coven, so evil? usually but not necesarily. I'm trying to make sense out of all the different terms for "magic users" and the roles they've played in history.

A warlock typically was an "Oath Breaker" Someone who went against either the group or the covens Oath. so a witch (can be male OR female) gone astray from his/her group. Warlock doesnt always mean evil. Because one doesnt know what oath the warlock broke.

Among historic Christian traditions, Warlock was coined to be the phrase for a Male witch or wizard or any male that practiced the magical arts.

[Graveyard Hound]

The deals with the devil has more Faust in it than reality. It is a popular misconception, signing a contract in ones own blood, being granted anything, etc but the contract supposedly had a time frame with it and the owner of the contract came back to claim the victum when time expired. It makes good reading but there appears to be not a single contract left, I guess it went back along with the victum.

[Graveyard Hound]

I have been trying to keep with with the terms used for this or not related to the subject matter and it seems that each group might use different phrases for the same thing and in other instances they are the same.I can imagine what "Old English"might sound like at one of the Sabbaths.

[jadewik]

Faust isn't the only lore that refers to the contract with the devil, though I do agree that it may have been how the idea of a contract originated as it was first printed in Germany in the late 1590's. Similar stories have been repeated several times and in several different media since then, perpetuating the idea.

There are stories like Washington Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker" (1824) wherein the main character, Tom, enters into a contract with the devil and is duped into giving himself up. His contract was not signed in blood, but in the form of an ashen fingerprint burned onto his forehead. Though the "conditions" of the deal are never directly mentioned-- having been "easily surmised", so the terms of such a contract must have already been written in "lore" by the time Washington Irving penned his short story.

The movie "Ghost Rider" based on the comic book by the self same title is a more recent example of this deal with the devil in popular culture. There are references to the contract signed in blood in this film-- with the original contract turning to ash or dust when the terms of the contract have been fulfilled and the contract is "collected".

So... it's safe to say that the "popular culture" that defines witches and warlocks and contracts with Old Scratch have been popular misconceptions for several centuries as they've been told and retold in several different stories and variants upon the original. Finding a source prior to Faustus could be prove to be quite difficult.

Personally, I'd go with the general consensus as to a definition of a warlock-- either one of the definitions posed by WitchMom78. It'd be a lot easier than finding something pre-Faust. It'd also require less explanation when it came to your DnD character sheet. For your purposes, it'd probably be just fine.

As an aside: Composer Franz Liszt is also associated heavily with Faust-- often times his own composition "Danse Macabre" is played while the story of Faust is being told. (See the movie "Tombstone" (1993), for one example.)