witch — Words of the week

I’ve recently been watching the show ‘A Discovery of Witches’ (based on the ‘All Souls Trilogy’ by Deborah Harkness) and in the third series the word ‘scion’ is used to describe a magical being born from unions (by which I mean sexy sex, tee hee) between witches, vampires, daemons and humans.

Scion also has a couple of rather more mundane definitions in the real world. The first one is a figurative one – it’s used to refer to a descendant, heir or offspring, especially in the context of a family or lineage. Usually a posh family or lineage. If you move in those types of circles then you might have heard the phrase ‘scion of a wealthy family’. Lucky you.

The second explanation is a botanical one. In this context a scion refers to a shoot or twig that’s cut off and then grafted onto another plant. This all sounds a bit Frankenstein to me as a non-gardener (although I did grow two whole lettuces this summer), and allows horticulturists to combine the nice bits of two different plants into one. For example, they might graft a scion from a tree with yummers fruit onto a rootstock which has good disease resistance, or likes a certain type of soil (more on that in a minute).

‘Scion’ has its roots (geddit?) in Middle English and was borrowed from Anglo-French, which itself originated from continental Old French. The French term ‘cion’ meant ‘offspring’ or ‘new growth of a plant’, and came from a combination of a West Germanic root (again, sorry) meaning ‘sprout’ or ‘bud’. The horticultural meaning came first (in the 14th century), and the posh family meaning probably followed due to the metaphorical idea of a new growth or offshoot representing the continuation of a family or lineage.

Grafting scions is used for most commercially successful apples, because it’s basically impossible to grow a particular type of apple tree from a seed. So if you’re eating a Granny Smith and plant one of the seeds, you won’t get a Granny Smith tree. That’s because apple seeds are a result of sexual reproduction (tee hee again), meaning they inherit genetic material from both the mother tree (the apple variety you’ve just eaten) and a pollen source (which has to be a different apple tree). Apple trees also take bloody ages to grow. That makes grafting a scion from a mature, known tree onto a rootstock much quicker and more reliable, as it means the new tree will be genetically identical to the parent and have the same characteristics. So basically all the apples we eat are CLONES. Mind blown.

When you hear the word ‘mascot’, you probably think of someone dressed in an oversized costume running about at a sports event posing for pictures and hugging people. But in fact, the word ‘mascot’ has quite a sinister history, rooted in black magic and witches. OOOH.

Okay, I might have overegged the pudding ever so slightly. The word ‘mascot’ dates back to the 19th century, and comes from the French word ‘mascotte’, which was used to describe a lucky charm, talisman or magical object. This in turn came from ‘masco’, a Provençal (a dialect of southern France) term for a sorceress or witch. That probably comes from the Old Provençal word ‘masca’, meaning ‘mask’ or ‘spectre’. In the late 19th century, we started using the term to refer to a person, animal or object that brought luck or represents a group, like a sports team.

Sports team mascots are often chosen based on symbolism, characteristics or qualities that are supposed to bring positive energy or success. But sometimes they’re just downright scary. Take Kingsley, who represents Partick Thistle, a professional football club from Glasgow, and looks like a squashed sun with the cold dead eyes of a killer. He was designed by Turner Prize-nominated artist David Shrigley and was unveiled in 2015 to coincide with Thistle’s new sponsorship from investment firm Kingsford Capital Management. Reactions to Kingsley varied from ‘Lisa Simpson on meth’ to ‘the haggard face of the Teletubbies’ sun baby’. Kingsley also has the dubious honour of being the only mascot ever to earn a review from the Guardian’s art critic Jonathan Jones, who compared him to the monsters painted and sculpted by the surrealist Joan Miró. It obviously hit home as well, with Kingsley’s web page on the Partick Thistle site reading as follows:

‘There were a lot of mean things said about me when I first appeared, but I’m not too concerned because I know it’s what’s on the inside that counts. I’m a nice guy really – just a bit misunderstood … I might look a bit angry but I’m really very approachable and I love Partick Thistle. So don’t be scared to come and say hello if you see me out and about.’

Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?