In the early days, when Christianity was slowly growing in strength, the Old Religion-the Wiccans and other pagans-was one of its rivals. It is only natural to want to get rid of a rival and the Church pulled no punches to do just that. It has frequently been said that the gods of old religion become the devils of a new. This was certainly the case here. The God of the Old Religion was a horned god. So, apparently, was the Christian's Devil. Obviously then, reasoned the Church, the pagans were Devil worshippers! This type of reasoning is used by the Church even today. Missionaries were particularly prone to label all primitive tribes upon whom they stumbled as devil-worshippers, just because the tribe worshipped a god or gods other then the Christian one. It would not matter that the people were good, happy often morrally and ethically better living than the vast majority of Christians.....they had to be converted!
The charge of Devil-worship, so often leveled at Witches, it is ridiculous. The Devil is a purely Christian invention! In fact it is interesting to note that the whole concept of evil associated with the Devil is due to an error in translation. The original Old Testament Hebrew Ha-satan and the New Testament Greek diabolos simply mean " opponent" or "adversary"!