Allow me a moment's irritation that this persistent misinformation continues to get shared. The 'witch' of witch hazel or witch elm is *not* that witch. This is the Proto-IndoEuropean root *weik

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Witch as in us witches, is a completely different strand:

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You don't even need the Oxford English Dictionary; there is a rather good Online Etymological Dictionary. The word witch in English has nothing to do with bending. Isn't it much more wonderful to "be lively, thrive"? I certainly think so. Let us become awake to the truth!

*Witches can bend and may bend especially if they take up yoga.

[Image (a fave!) Henry Meynell Rheam's The Sorceress (1898)]