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I was just reading People of the river and I came upon the
To me this seems to be a misnomer. In Latin
Now if the arch type say expanded the witches arcane arcane abilities that would make sense.
I know I'm grumbling about nothing terribly important. Well there we are.
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As the writer, I can answer this.
Veneficus means Wizard, Not Poisoner.
Actually, it's used for both, though 'poisoner' is the more literal translation (you can see the root of the word 'venom' in there). Ancient peoples liked to blame their ailments on witches and wizards.
My use of it here is a bit of a biblical joke: The King James Bible translates 'veneficus' in the Latin scriptures as 'witch'. (The Latin translators used 'veneficus' for the Greek 'pharmakos', which roughly translates as 'druggist'. What the original Hebrew word meant is debatable.)
(Obliquely, my proofreader took issue with the fact that 'veneficus' is masculine and all the pronouns are feminine.)