In Cornish and Welsh the word "wrach" means old woman, hag, witch. Fraic as in the placename Leitir Fraic is said to be an old obsolete Irish word for a woman. In Serbian, the word "vrač" pronounced "vrach" means doctor, physician, shamanistic priest, witch doctor, magician, warlock. The verb "vračati" means to cast spells, to divinate, to perform any magical action. The word is found in all Slavic languages.
In Serbian villages the role of "vrač" was usually performed by a woman who was then called "vračara", feminine form of "vrač". Vračara was the healer, midwife, amulet maker, spell caster, fortune teller, and basically keeper of "magical" and other ancient religious traditions and taboos. Some of the rituals preserved as part of this folk magic are remnants of ancient Vedic, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Old Slavic, Turkish... religious rituals which accumulated in Serbian culture...
Vračara was usually an old woman who received her "magical" knowledge from her mother who got it from her mother who got it from her mother...Vračara was quintessential witch...But witch which was part of the community. The good witch. The real ones never charged for their services. They did their what they did because it was their calling.
Vračara was most likely to look something like this. Basically your typical Serbian baba (grandmother, old woman, hag, "wrach"):
The tradition of vračara was suppressed during Christianity, when vračara was seen as part of the old pagan belief system. It was also suppressed during Communism when vračara was at best seen as part of the backward peasant culture and at worst as fraudster who was danger to society. It is today also suppressed as stupid dangerous superstition of which we Serbs should be ashamed...
Despite centuries of suppression, village vračara managed to survive until recently. However today the tradition is dying out because the Serbian villages are dying out and crumbling to dust. And soon the Celtic "wrach", Serbian "vrač", the old village "witch" will disappear into the legend for ever...
