ok so when i first got the game i went the wrong way up the mountain to meet the gray beards and i encountered this strange cave and went through it on the outside there was this ice spirit witch type things with floating orbs. i never did kill i reverted and its always bugs me to know what it was, has anyone else ever found the thing and what is it

If I had to guess, I'd say you encountered a wispmother.

Yeah, that's a Wisp Mother.

Look like this?
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Wispmother

i almost never see whipmothers, that just makes every encounter with them even better/more horrifying

I've found them in 3-4 locations. Very seldom that I find one.

That one quest to retrieve the Pale sword.
Some random watchtower
A clearing with a stone circle in the center where she stood
Blackreach

Yeah, you can run into those crazy ladies once in a while. They can be rather dangerous.

Would be nice to understand the lore behind those things. I wonder if they're linked to the hargravens and those wood spirit things (whatever they're called)?

EDIT: Wait - Spriggans. That's the word I was looking for....

No lie! Makes you wonder why Wisp Wrapings are even an aclchemical ingriedent at all

well, you need some kinda reward for finding and surviving one of those things, and it gives me a nice signature ingriedent for my assassin (in oblivion it was nirn root, but those are everywhere in skyrim so i use wisp wraping)

VERY cool - do the four listed above re-spawn? Never thought to go back for one...

I don't know about the quest-related one (I think it was a named NPC) but the others do or should.

It might've been an Ice Wraith. Those usually hang out with Wispmothers.

There is a quest related one. Found in a barrow at the foot of the mountain where Dagon's Shrine is. I believe...
I think it gives wisp wrapping as well.

I can buy more wisp wrapping than I find. I fight more bandit's dogs than I do wisp mothers.

OP said witch so its probably human shaped. Ice wraiths are the ice snake things like the one at the Weynon Stones. What you are think of are wisps, or wisp apparitions I don't remember the exact term.