In Slavic mythology, a vedmak is a warlock or male witch, the female equivalent (witch) being vedma. This role greatly focuses on the Shamanic aspects of Slavic paganism.
For example, they treat people and animals. On the other hand, they are thought to be people connected to the devil, and are capable of bringing harm by sending illnesses, killing cattle, spoiling a harvest, etc. The word was also used as an insult. A vedmak can turn into any animal or any object.
Vedmak stems from Proto-Slavic *vÃÂdÃÂt ("to know") and Old East Slavic òãôà("knowledge; witchcraft", compare the use of the term "cunning" in English folklore).
Under the influence of The Witcher fantasy saga by Andrzej Sapkowski, the term vedmak is sometimes also rendered as "witcher" in English in certain contexts. The word used for "witcher" in the original Polish version of the novels, "wiedà ºmin", was coined by Sapkowski himself as a neologism, and the word "wiedà ºmak" (cognate of "vedmak") is used in the books only as a derogatory term for witchers. "ÃÂõôÃÂüðú" is also the word used to translate "wiedà ºmin" in the Russian translation of the books.