What is the history of witches?
I wish we could know. That fact is most information on the subject is either missing from the historical record or is extremely biased toward a particular religious view (like that written by the church during the witch trials of Europe). Since many of what we would today call witches didn’t go by that name in a lot of stories and records, you will have to look up information under a lot of other names besides ‘witch’: wise woman, medicine man, shaman, sorcerer, healer, etc. Even today different cultures would disagree on the meaning of all of these names – including the definition of ‘witch’. We are very familiar with the Christian and neo-pagan ways of viewing witchcraft, but other views exist as well. All cultures have stories and traditions of those who work magic, and some of these stories in written form extend back to ancient times. BTW: I am a pagan, but am answering you from historical perspective. EDIT: I think lolal has a good idea – look up specific culture’s or religion’s
