Etymology of Wicca Weekly Scotsman", in response to the popularisation of Margaret Murray's witch-cult hypothesis in Scotland, that "the Saxon word 'wicca', a witch" was "of immemorial usage" in the Scottish Lowlands. Doyle White suggests that the early Wiccans adopted the term "wicca" as the basis for the name of their burgeoning faith because theirs was a new religious movement that took "iconography and inspiration" from the polytheistic cults of pre-Christian Britain. Gerald Gardner (1884–1964), the man largely responsible for propagating the Wiccan religion in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s and the founder of the Gardnerian tradition, never used the term "Wicca"
Magical tools in Wicca work magic. The general idea is that the tool directs psychic energies to perform a certain action. In modern day Wicca, there is an encouragement of solitary practice of rituals and study. Covens are still a part of Wicca and related doctrines but there is now insistence that solitary practice is permissible. This has filtered down to lightweight (in the sense of being heavily illustrated, not exactly scholarly and not entirely serious) books being available in the bookstores of any modern town which are marketed as manuals of how to become a Wiccan (or Pagan). The allowance of solitary practice