Old English replacement of the letter ƿynn with w. This is a proclamation from King Cnut the Great to his earl Thorkell the Tall and the English people written in AD 1020. Unlike the previous two examples, this text is prose rather than poetry. For ease of reading, the passage has been divided into sentences while the pilcrows represent the original division. The earliest history of Old English lexicography lies in the Anglo-Saxon period itself, when English-speaking scholars created English glosses on Latin texts. At first these were often marginal or interlinear glosses, but soon came to be gathered into word-lists such
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