Old English give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old English from Old Norse was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most "important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in
Witch (word) Ælfred", which date to about 890: In the homilies of the Old English grammarian Ælfric, dating to the late 10th century we find: In both these examples "wiccan" is the plural noun, not an adjective. The adjective "fulan" (foul) can mean "physically unclean" as well as "morally or spiritually unclean" or "wicked". In Old English glossaries the words "wicce" and "wicca" are used to gloss such Latin terms as "augur", "hariolus", "conjector", and "pythonyssa", all of which mean "diviner", "soothsayer", which suggests a possible role of fortune-teller for the witch in Anglo-Saxon times. The word "wicca" is associated with animistic