Cunning folk
Encyclopedia
The cunning folk in Britain were professional or semi-professional practitioners of magic
active from the Medieval period through to the early twentieth century. As cunning folk
, they practised folk magic – also known as "low magic" – although often combined with elements of "high" or ceremonial magic
, which they learned through the study of grimoires. Primarily using spells and creating charms as a part of their profession, they were most commonly employed to use their magic in order to combat malevolent witchcraft
, to locate criminals, missing persons or stolen property, for fortune telling, for healing, for treasure hunting and to influence people to fall in love. Belonging "to the world of popular belief and custom", the cunning folk's magic has been defined as being "concerned not with the mysteries of the universe and the empowerment of the magus [as ceremonial magic usually is], so much as with practical remedies for specific problems." However, other historians have noted that in some cases, there was apparently an "experimental or 'spiritual' dimension" to their magical practices, something which was possibly shamanic
in nature.
Although the British cunning folk were in almost all cases Christian
themselves, certain Christian theologians and Church
authorities believed that, being practitioners of magic, the cunning folk were in league with the Devil
and as such were akin to the more overtly Satanic and malevolent witches
, the very existence of which is debatable. Partly due to this, laws were enacted across England
, Scotland
and Wales
that often condemned cunning folk and their magical practices, but there was no widespread persecution of them akin to the Witch Hunt, largely because most common people firmly distinguished between the two: witches were seen as being harmful and cunning folk as useful.
The British cunning folk were known by a variety of names in different regions of the country, including wise men and wise women, pellars, wizards, dyn hysbys, and sometimes white witches. Comparable figures were found in other parts of Western Europe: in France, such terms as devins-guérisseurs and leveurs de sorts were used for them, whilst in the Netherlands they were known as toverdokters or duivelbanners, in Germany as Hexenmeisters and in Denmark as kloge folk. In Spain they were curandero
s whilst in Portugal they were known as saludadores. It is widely agreed by historians and folklorists, such as Willem de Blécourt, Robin Briggs and Owen Davies
, that the term "cunning folk" could be applied to all of these figures as well to reflect a pan-European tradition.
power which greatly increased the effectiveness of the operations concerned."
The term "cunning man" or "cunning woman" was most widely used in southern England, the Midlands
, and in Wales. Such people were also frequently known across England as "wizards", "wise men" or "wise women", or in southern England and Wales as "conjurers
" or as "dyn hysbys" in the Welsh language
. In Cornwall
they were sometimes referred to as "pellars", which some etymologists suggest originated from the term "expellers", referring to the practice of expelling evil spirits. Nineteenth-century folklorists
often used the term "white witch
" to refer to cunning folk, although this was infrequently used amongst the ordinary people themselves, as for them the term "witch" had general connotations of malevolence and evil.
The cunning folk of Britain were often from the societal class that included artisans, tradesmen, and farmers, and as such were commonly at least semi-literate and of a higher social position than common labourers. In many cases they continued in their ordinary line of work alongside earning money as a professional cunning man or woman in order to gain the maximum possible income. In almost all cases, cunning folk worked either alone, as a solitary magical practitioner, or with one other person, such as a spouse or sibling. The only known exception was in early nineteenth-century Manchester
, where a group of cunning men used to meet in a group centred around the most prominent of their members, a cunning fellow called Rawlinson. This method of working alone was one factor that separated the cunning folk from the stereotype of witches then prevalent in Britain, which often held that these witches met together in groups, sometimes known as covens, and at times flew through the air in order to get to their meeting points.
"Cunning-folk operated in a competitive market where reputations and first impressions were very important", and as such often worked on their personal promotion. Some were known to travel relatively large distances to visit their clients as well as making calls during the night if requested. A number, though by no means all, were also known to wear "striking costume or home decorations" in order to enhance their reputations as magical individuals, for instance, a nineteenth-century cunning woman in Yorkshire
wore a conical hat and a robe with mystical signs on it, as well as hanging herbs and papers from the ceiling of her home. Similarly, James "Cunning" Murrell, the nineteenth-century cunning man of Hadleigh
in south-east Essex, wore iron goggles and carried a whalebone umbrella whenever he went out, whilst Mother Merne, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century wise woman of Milborne Down in Dorset
kept guinea pig
s, black hens, a black goat and a black cat
, the latter of which would sit on her shoulder during consultations with clients.
and the curses which these witches had allegedly placed upon people. Alongside this, they were also known at times for identifying witches, and in this manner they were "the only healers to offer a comprehensive package of anti-witch measures." British cunning folk were known to use a variety of methods in order to cure someone of malevolent sorcery, including tackling the witch either physically or through the law courts, breaking the spell over the individual by magical means, and by using charms and potions to remove the witchcraft from the afflicted person's body. As historian Owen Davies
noted, "Most cunning-folk employed a multi-pronged approach to curing witchcraft, using a combination of written charms, magic rituals, prayers and herbal medicines, thereby appealing to the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of the sick."
One of the best known means by which the cunning folk opposed witchcraft was through the use of witch bottle
s; ceramic bottles containing such items as urine, nails, hair and nail clippings which it was believed, when put together, would cause harm to the malevolent witch. Another commonly used method was to take the heart
of an animal, and to pierce it with pins, in order to do harm to the witch, whilst other cunning folk preferred to make dolls of the witch out of rags and other materials and then pierce them with pins, again with the intention of inflicting physical harm on the witch, and breaking their bewitchment.
Amongst the common people who often went to the cunning folk for aid, these magical practitioners were seen as being very much distinct from witches; as Davies noted, to the average person "witches were evil but cunning-folk were useful". However, a number of theologians and figures of Church authority nonetheless believed that the cunning-folk, in practicing magic, were also, like the witches, following the Devil
, a malevolent supernatural entity in Christian mythology. Such a viewpoint was not constrained to any one particular form of Christianity in this period, but was found amongst the Roman Catholic Church
, the Anglican
Church of England
and also various forms of Protestantism
. A number of early Quakers, a Protestant denomination founded in the seventeenth century, were particularly vocal against the cunning folk, perhaps because they themselves were accused by their critics of using sorcery to attract new members, and so wanted to heavily distance themselves from such practices.
: an example of this was reported in 1617, as John Redman of Sutton discovered that his wife had left him, and "went from wizard to wizard, or, as they term them 'wise men', to have them bring her again".
The methods used to perform this service differed amongst the cunning folk, although astrology
was one of the most commonly used ways. In some cases, the cunning man or woman would instead get their client to give them a list of names of people whom they suspected of having stolen their property, and from which they would use various forms of divination
to come to a conclusion regarding who was the guilty party, or alternately they would get their client to scry
with a reflective surface such as a mirror, crystal ball
, piece of glass or bowl of water, and then allow them to see an image of the culprit themselves. According to historian Owen Davies, this was an "alternative, less risky strategy" than divination or astrology because it allowed the client to confirm "their own suspicions without cunning-folk having to name someone explicitly."
The concept of cunning folk locating criminals using magical means concerned a number of people in power in England, and there are records from London in the fourteenth century showing that certain cunning folk themselves were brought to trial because of their accusations against other members of the community: for instance, in 1382 a cunning man named Robert Berewold was brought to court after accusing a woman named Johanna Wolsy of stealing a drinking bowl from a house in St Mildred Poultry. In the trial, it emerged that Berewold had come to his conclusion through a form of divination known as "turning the loaf" where a wooden peg was stuck into the top of a loaf of bread with four knives then stuck into the sides. A list of names would then be spoken, and according to the theory, the loaf would supposedly turn when the name of the thief was spoken. Berewold was found guilty of making unsubstantiated and damaging claims, and punished in the pillory
.
to heal the sick. In keeping with this Christian basis, sometimes religious objects like holy water
, candle wax or Eucharist
wafers were used in healing. On occasion, live animals would be used as a part of the treatment, for instance in 1604, the Northumberland
cunning women Katherine Thompson and Anne Nevelson were convicted by a court for placing a duck's beak to a woman's mouth whilst reciting charms as a form of healing.
Cunning folk at times were also known to offer abortion
s, usually via a poisonous potion that would kill the foetus, but there were cases where the potion also made the pregnant woman very ill.
, offering a number of services pertaining to sex and relationships. One form of this was a form of fortune telling where they would divine the name or appearance of a clients' future lover, often through the use of palmistry, scrying or astrology. Another popular practice of the cunning folk was the casting of spells or charms to ensure a spouse's fidelity, preventing them from committing adultery
, for instance, a cunning man from Newcastle
, Peter Banks, was charged in 1673–74 for offering to draw up a magical contract which would bind a husband to staying loyal to his wife for a year.
A number of cunning folk claimed to have the ability to locate treasure
, and at times were employed by people in this capacity. In a number of these cases it was believed that a supernatural entity, such as a demon
, spirit
or fairy
was guarding the hidden treasure, and that a cunning practitioner was needed to overcome them using magical means.
There were also claims that certain cunning folk were known to occasionally perform bewitching or cursing
for a fee, which under some definitions would enable them to be considered to be witches as well as cunning people. The folklorist Eric Maple, after examining a number of nineteenth-century cunning folk in Essex
, noted that one of them, George Pickingill
, also performed cursing for clients, but that the other whom he examined, James Murrell, considered it immoral and so did not. Indeed, other Essex cunning folk were associated with witchcraft, notable in the village of Sible Hedingham
, where there lived an elderly French cunning man who had had his tongue cut out at some point in his past, and who was subsequently dumb, as well as being deaf. As a result he was known as "Dummy
" in the local community, who generally disliked him, largely because of his 'otherness' in being both foreign and disabled, and rumours spread that he was a witch who would curse them. In 1863 a drunken mob attacked him, throwing him in a river to see if he would sink or float (a traditional method of identifying a witch, who it was believed would float, whereas an innocent would sink), but the resulting shock killed the elderly man, who was in his eighties. Another notable case of a cunning person performing cursing and malevolent witchcraft comes from nineteenth-century Norwich
, where a wise woman who went by the pseudonym of "Virtue" used to demand gifts from her neighbours, threatening them with cursing if they refused.
, or "high magic", based primarily on what they had gleaned from books of magic, or grimoire
s.
, which was the cheaper option, or, in certain cases, parchment
, which according to certain magical texts should have been made from the skin of a virgin or unborn calf. "Most written charms contained a strong religious content", typically invoking various names of God
(such as Elohim
, Adonai, Tetragrammaton
etc) or of His angels in order to help the particular charm to be effective. In some cases they quoted whole sections from the Bible, sometimes in either Latin, Greek or Hebrew rather than English, which was the common language of the period. At other times they made use of magic words, such as "Abracadabra
" or "sator arepo tenet opera rotas", the latter of which spells the same when read front-to-back or back-to-front. Such charms were then sometimes sewn into a bag, or placed within a bottle, and either carried about by the client or placed somewhere in their home.
In the nineteenth century, a ritual known as the toad bone rite became popular, particularly in East Anglia
but also in other areas of the country, amongst both cunning folk and members of magical organizations such as the Scottish Society of the Horseman's Word and East Anglian Society of Horsemen. Originally based upon an ancient southern European magical practice documented by Pliny
, it had later been purported in the works of Cornelius Agrippa and Reginald Scot
, which were read by a number of literate cunning folk. Although there were many variations, the ritual typically involved the killing of a toad or frog, having its flesh stripped from the bones by ants, and then throwing the bone into a stream at night. It was believed that this would grant the practitioner, who was known as a Toad Man, the ability to perform certain magical tasks.
s, or books of magic. In many cases they made a big show of the fact that they owned such tomes, which would have appeared impressive in the minds of many of their customers in a period where only a minority of people were able to read and write in Britain. Indeed, some cunning folk appeared to own these grimoires purely for cosmetic reasons, to impress their clients, and did not actually make use of any of the magical rituals contained within them.
Whilst grimoires had been around in Europe since the ancient period, and a large number of new grimoires had been produced during the Medieval, they had remained highly expensive and hand written items that the average person would not have had access to. In the Early Modern period, this began to change as the invention of printing
allowed grimoires to be produced in greater quantities; initially this had primarily been in languages other than English, particularly Latin
, but in the mid-sixteenth century, English translations of Albertus Magnus
' Book of Secrets were produced, whilst the printing of English-language grimoires increased in the seventeenth century. Another significant grimoire to be published in English was James Freake's translation of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, which "must have generated a good deal of interest among [the cunning folk] and other less well-educated magical practitioners at the time." Equally popular was the English astrologer Robert Turner's translation of the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy (1655), which was erroneously attributed to having been written by Agrippa.
However, perhaps "the most influential vehicle for the dissemination of high magic to a wider audience was, in fact, Reginald Scot
's Discoverie of Witchcraft
", a book first published in the early seventeenth century in which Scot condemned the cunning folk as liars and tricksters, but in which he had also provided a wide variety of talisman
s, charms and rituals as examples of what the cunning folk and ceremonial magicians performed. This book was subsequently republished on a number of occasions, and copies were obtained by a wide variety of cunning craft practitioners who used the information in the work to enhance their own magical praxes.
entities known as familiar spirit
s to aid them in their practice of magic. These spirits, which were also believed to work for witches as well, are referenced in a large number of the witch trial records from the Early Modern period. After examining these accounts, historian Emma Wilby
noted how in the descriptions given of familiar spirits by both cunning folk and those accused of witchcraft, there was "a pervading sense of naturalism", with most familiars resembling "relatively ordinary humans or animals with only slight, if any, visual anomalies." For instance, folklorist Eric Maple noted that in the English region of East Anglia
during the latter nineteenth century, it was commonly thought that familiar spirits, which were often referred to as "imps
" in that region, took the form of white mice. There were however some exceptions to these naturalistic familiars, for instance a woman in Cambridgeshire
was believed to have a familiar spirit that was a cross between a frog and a rat.
Wilby identified many similarities between the familiars recorded as serving cunning folk and those serving witches, with a general, though by no means universal, attribution of cunning folk's familiars with being benevolent and helping people, whilst those belonging to witches were more often thought of as being malevolent and causing harm. Again, in general the former were often referred to as "fairies" and the latter as "demons". Wilby noted how both British cunning folk and witches often described similar scenarios for how they had first encountered their familiar: most prominent of these was the claim that the familiar had simply appeared spontaneously whilst they went about their everyday activities, whilst other claims held that the witch or cunning person had inherited it from another magical practitioner, who was usually a family member, or that they had been given it by a more powerful spirit. The magical practitioner and the familiar then set about on a working relationship, sometimes solidified in a pact.
At times, the familiar spirit was believed to take the cunning person on a visionary journey to a place called Elfhame (literally meaning "elf-home"), which is now often referred to as Fairyland
. In these trips, the cunning folk's soul was typically believed to go with their familiar on a journey into a hill, within which they would find a great subterranean fairy hall. In the hall, they would find a company of fairies, led by a king and queen, and would take part in feasting, drinking and dancing. Wilby connected the cunning folk's trip to Fairyland with the witches' believed trip to the sabbath
meeting, which she also believed was a visionary journey. She accepted the theory, based upon the ideas of earlier historians such as Carlo Ginzburg
and Éva Pócs
, that the concept of the witches' sabbath was developed through the Christian demonizing of earlier pre-Christian concepts of the visit to Fairyland.
Historian Ronald Hutton
remarked that "It is quite possible that pre-Christian mythology lies behind this tradition" of a belief in familiar spirits. Such an idea was supported by Wilby, who compared the accounts of familiar spirits in Britain with anthropological
and ethnographic
accounts of helper spirits given by shamans
in both Siberia and North America. Noting a wide range of similarities between the two, she came to the conclusion that British belief in familiars must have been a surviving remnant of earlier animistic
and shamanic beliefs in the pre-Christian religions of the island.
society (with the only exception being a small Jewish
population), although during this period there was a gradual shift from adherence to Roman Catholicism to forms of Anglicanism
and Protestantism
following the English Reformation
in the sixteenth century. It was because of this that the cunning folk operating in this era typically worked within a Christian framework and world view.
This Christian influence was evident in much of their magical praxes. For instance, the historian Owen Davies believed that the written charms supplied by cunning folk displayed the "intrinsic Christian content of [their] magic" and the influence of mystical and magical words taken from the Bible
. Historian Ronald Hutton concurred with this assessment, remarking that "Looking at the recorded charms dispensed by magical practitioners, it is obvious that many – perhaps the majority – are Christian in character. They quote from the Bible
, or appeal to the Trinity
, or to Jesus
, or to saints. In most cases, to be sure, they are using the trappings and symbols of Christianity with little regard to what the churchmen would have regarded as its essence; the Bible ... This is, however, a large part of what popular Christianity had always been about, and something that had caused learned and devout members of the faith to tear their hair at intervals ever since the time of the Church Fathers
."
In keeping with the general population of the time, there were those cunning folk who were little more than nominal in their Christian belief as well as those that were devout. This was illustrated by historian James Obelkevitch in his examination of nineteenth-century popular religion in the southern part of the Lincolnshire chalk hills, when he note that the three main cunning people of the area, whilst each holding to a Christian worldview, each had different particular religious attachment. One of these, "Fiddler" Fynes, regularly attended church services and was an essentially conventional Christian for that period, whilst the second, John Worsdale of Lincoln, was similarly devout but was unconventional in that he rejected the need for a professional clergy. The third, Stainton of Louth, believed in a Christian theology and cosmology, but saw little point in worshipping the Christian God because he felt that in working with magic, "the Devil has hold" of him.
Although some twentieth and twenty-first century Neopagan
authors, such as Rae Beth, have claimed that the British cunning folk were followers of a surviving, pre-Christian "pagan
" religion, this is something rejected by historians. As Ronald Hutton noted, whilst there was pagan influences in some folk magical charms and a possible connection through the belief in familiar spirits, there is "no known case of a cunning person or a charmer calling upon a pagan deity."
, who referred to such practitioners as wicca (male) or wicce (female), or at times also as dry, practitioners of drycraeft, the latter of which have been speculated as being anglicised terms for the Irish drai, a term referring to druid
s, who appeared as anti-Christian sorcerers in much Irish literature of the period. Some of the spells and charms that had been used in the Anglo-Saxon pagan era continued to be used following Christianization. However, as historian Owen Davies noted, "although some such pre-Christian magic continued, to label it pagan is to misrepresent the people who used it and the context in which it was used."
The extent to which elements from pre-Christian pagan religions influenced the cunning folk is debatable. Owen Davies believed that "few historical insights are to be gained from seeking an archaic or shamanic lineage for cunning-folk." Such a claim has subsequently been challenged by Emma Wilby, who has put forward the case that the belief in familiar spirits, and the visionary journeys into Fairyland that sometimes accompanied them, were survivals from "pre-Christian animism
".
and Wales
, which had been politically united following the Norman invasion of Wales
in the Late Medieval period, cunning folk had operated throughout the latter part of the Medieval and into the Early Modern period. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there had been no attempt to illegalise the cunning craft, although private law suits had been brought against some of them by those clients who felt that they had been cheated out of their money. This changed with the Witchcraft Act of 1542, enacted under the reign of Henry VIII, which targeted both witches and cunning folk, and which prescribed the death penalty for such crimes as using invocations and conjurations to locate treasure or to cast a love spell. This law was repealed no later than 1547, under the reign of Henry's son Edward VI, something that the historian Owen Davies
believed was due to those in power changing their opinion on the law: they believed that either the death penalty was too harsh for such crimes or that the practice of the cunning craft was a moral issue that was better for the Church to deal with in ecclesiastic courts rather than a problem that had to be sorted out by the state.
For the following few decades, the magical practices of the cunning folk remained legal, despite opposition from certain religious authorities. It was a time of great religious upheaval in the country as Edward's successor, his sister Mary I
, reintroduced Roman Catholicism, before Anglicanism
was once again reimposed under Elizabeth I. In 1563, after the return of power to the Anglican Church of England
, a bill was passed by parliament designed to illegalise "Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts", again being aimed at both the alleged witches and the cunning folk. However, this law was not as harsh as its earlier predecessor, with the death penalty being reserved for those who were believed to have conjured an evil spirit or murdered someone through magical means, whilst those for whom the use of magic was a first offence faced a year's imprisonment and four stints in the pillory
. Nonetheless, this law would have little effect on the cunning folk, as "the attention and focus of the courts shifted away from the activities of cunning-folk and towards the maleficium of supposed witches" – the Witch Hunt that had been raging in Scotland and in many parts of continental Europe had finally arrived in England.
Whilst across England, many people were accused of witchcraft by members of their local communities and put on trial, the cunning folk very rarely suffered a similar fate. It was unusual for a cunning man or woman to actually be accused of witchcraft; in the county of Essex
for instance, whereas around four hundred people had been put on trial for witchcraft, only four of those were identifiably cunning folk. However, many of the professional witch-hunters and theologians continued to proclaim the cunning craft as being the same as witchcraft, with them both being caused by the Devil. One pamphlet published that espoused these views claimed that the cunning folk should be "most cruelly executed: for that no punishment can bee [sic] thought upon, be it never so high a degree of torment, which may be deemed sufficient for such a divelish [sic] and danable [sic] practise." Their views however were not supported by the general population, who continued to see a distinct difference between witchcraft and cunning craft, with the witch-hunter John Stearne, an associate of Matthew Hopkins
, remarking that whilst he and Hopkins wanted to prosecute the cunning folk, they could not because "men rather uphold them, and say, why should any man be questioned for doing good."
Meanwhile, the idea of the cunning folk began to appear in the literature of the period. In 1638, the playwright Thomas Heywood
published his comedy, The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, whilst in 1684 another playwright, Edward Ravenscroft
, published his own play about a cunning woman. With the decline in the witch trials in the latter part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, partly due to the rise of the Enlightenment
amongst the educated elite, a new law was introduced, the Witchcraft Act of 1736. Unlike earlier laws, this did not accept the existence of magic, and was designed to be used to prosecute those who claimed magical powers as being fraudulent; it could therefore be very damaging to the cunning profession. The new regulations imposed by the Witchcraft Act of 1736 laid down a maximum penalty of a year's imprisonment for the crime of deceiving people by claiming magical powers, but in effect, during the rest of the eighteenth century, there were very few prosecutions, with most authorities not bothering to enforce this particular law.
. However, like the rest of Britain, it also saw cunning folk operating within its borders.
as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
, controlled by a central government in London
. Such a political union also brought about an increase in cultural diffusion and unity between the various nations. It was in nineteenth-century Scotland that an agricultural organization that acted as both a trade union
and a magical fraternity known as the Society of the Horseman's Word was founded. Its members, whilst not being cunning folk, practiced folk magic, and soon an English alternative, the Society of Horsemen, had also been founded. The spread of such magical groups and their ideas could be seen in the diffusion of the toad bone rite, which was used by such horseman's groups and various cunning folk, and examples of which could be found scattered across Britain, from Nevern
in Pembrokeshire
, Wales
to East Anglia in England.
At the start of the nineteenth century, the popularity of cunning folk continued, and there was still a large and lucrative market for their services, for instance in 1816, there were eight different wise women working independently in the English coastal town of Whitby
. Nonetheless, the nineteenth century also saw an increase in the numbers of those cunning folk being prosecuted under the Witchcraft Act of 1736, possibly because "members of the social elite came to perceive that a faith in magic [far from having been eradicated as they had hoped,] seemed to be as prevalent among the populace as it had been a hundred years before, even while a growing political turbulence among commoners gave their rulers a new interest in the idea of education and civility as stabilizing forces." Soon after this, in 1824, a new law commonly referred to as the Vagrancy Act 1824
was introduced, bringing about a further blow to the cunning profession by outlawing "persons pretending or professing to tell fortunes, or using any subtle craft, means and device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose." The enacting of the law led to the increased prosecutions of cunning folk, something that would only begin to wane in the 1910s.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of cunning folk across Britain had dropped relatively dramatically from that of a century before, and by the 1940s they had essentially vanished from the country. Despite this, other professional practitioners of popular magic, such as astrologers and fortune tellers, continued to remain popular. The historian Owen Davies believed that the primary reason for the decline in the cunning craft was the declining belief in the existence of malevolent witchcraft in the country (something brought about by modernization and increasing education and literacy rates), and therefore the collapse of any need for the anti-witchcraft measures that the cunning folk offered as their primary service. Whilst many of their magical practices continued to be used, being performed by folk and ceremonial magicians or being absorbed into new religious movement
s that used magic such as Wicca
, Davies concluded that the actual profession itself died out. Historian Ronald Hutton however believed that it was more accurate to state that the cunning craft, rather than dying out, "changed character" by being absorbed into other magical currents. The decline of the cunning craft in Britain was not however indicative of other European nations: in Italy
for example, cunning practitioners continued operating right into the early twenty-first century.
He noted that many of those currently referring to themselves as cunning-folk, wise women, white witches and the like during the 1990s and 2000s were explicitly Neopagan
in their faith, which influenced their magical workings. He also noted that many of them referred to themselves as "hedge witches", a term that was first developed by the writer Rae Beth in her book Hedge Witch: A Guide to Solitary Witchcraft (1990). Beth explicitly stated that the magical practices that she was purporting were the original practices of the cunning-folk, but she had incorrectly connected them to ancient paganism
and the Witch-Cult
. This was something Davies criticised, stating that:
Historian Ronald Hutton
noted that the low magic of the cunning folk was one of the lesser influences upon the development of the Neopagan religion of Wicca
and related witchcraft-based groups in the early twentieth century. For instance, one of the pioneering English Neopagan Witches, Robert Cochrane, who would describe himself under such titles as "pellar" and who led a coven
known as the Clan of Tubal Cain in the early 1960s, allegedly contained elements borrowed from the cunning craft in his tradition, known as Cochrane's Craft
. Indeed, Shani Oates, one of his later followers, claimed that his tradition "preserves many elements of 19th century cunning and folk magics". Hutton however also noted that although many Neopagan Witches consider themselves to be the heirs of the cunning people, they "have much more in common with the stereotypical images of witches in nineteenth-century popular culture; the very beings who were regarded as the natural enemies of the charmers and cunning people."
had touched on the subject of English popular magic in his Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), in a 1994 article on the subject of the cunning folk, the historian Willem de Blécourt stated that the study of the subject, "properly speaking, has yet to start." These ideas were echoed in 1999, when the historian Ronald Hutton
, in his The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, remarked that the study of the cunning folk and European folk magic was "notoriously, an area that has been comparatively neglected by academic scholars." Nonetheless, a number of articles on the subject were published in the late 1990s, primarily by the historian Owen Davies
, who in 2003 published Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History (which was later republished under the altered title of Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History in 2007). This was followed in 2005 with the publication of Emma Wilby
's Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic, which took a somewhat different attitude to the cunning craft than Hutton and Davies, emphasising the spiritual as opposed to simply practical side to cunning folk's magic.
There are also examples of academic studies into specific British cunning folk. In 1960, the folklorist Eric Maple published articles on two nineteenth-century cunning men in East Anglia, James Murrell and George Pickingill
. In 2004, Jason Semmens published a study of a nineteenth-century Cornish cunning-woman as The Witch of the West: Or, The Strange and Wonderful History of Thomasine Blight.
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Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
active from the Medieval period through to the early twentieth century. As cunning folk
Cunning folk
The cunning folk in Britain were professional or semi-professional practitioners of magic active from the Medieval period through to the early twentieth century. As cunning folk, they practised folk magic – also known as "low magic" – although often combined with elements of "high" or ceremonial...
, they practised folk magic – also known as "low magic" – although often combined with elements of "high" or ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic, also referred to as high magic and as learned magic, is a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. It is named as such because the works included are characterized by...
, which they learned through the study of grimoires. Primarily using spells and creating charms as a part of their profession, they were most commonly employed to use their magic in order to combat malevolent witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
, to locate criminals, missing persons or stolen property, for fortune telling, for healing, for treasure hunting and to influence people to fall in love. Belonging "to the world of popular belief and custom", the cunning folk's magic has been defined as being "concerned not with the mysteries of the universe and the empowerment of the magus [as ceremonial magic usually is], so much as with practical remedies for specific problems." However, other historians have noted that in some cases, there was apparently an "experimental or 'spiritual' dimension" to their magical practices, something which was possibly shamanic
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
in nature.
Although the British cunning folk were in almost all cases Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
themselves, certain Christian theologians and Church
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
authorities believed that, being practitioners of magic, the cunning folk were in league with the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
and as such were akin to the more overtly Satanic and malevolent witches
European witchcraft
European Witchcraft is witchcraft and magic that is practised primarily in the locality of Europe.-Antiquity:Instances of persecution of witchcraft are documented from Classical Antiquity, paralleling evidence from the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament.In Ancient Greece, for example, Theoris,...
, the very existence of which is debatable. Partly due to this, laws were enacted across England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
that often condemned cunning folk and their magical practices, but there was no widespread persecution of them akin to the Witch Hunt, largely because most common people firmly distinguished between the two: witches were seen as being harmful and cunning folk as useful.
The British cunning folk were known by a variety of names in different regions of the country, including wise men and wise women, pellars, wizards, dyn hysbys, and sometimes white witches. Comparable figures were found in other parts of Western Europe: in France, such terms as devins-guérisseurs and leveurs de sorts were used for them, whilst in the Netherlands they were known as toverdokters or duivelbanners, in Germany as Hexenmeisters and in Denmark as kloge folk. In Spain they were curandero
Curandero
A curandero or curandeiro is a traditional folk healer or shaman in Latin America, who is dedicated to curing physical or spiritual illnesses. The role of a curandero or curandera can also incorporate the roles of psychiatrist along with that of doctor and healer. Many curanderos use Catholic...
s whilst in Portugal they were known as saludadores. It is widely agreed by historians and folklorists, such as Willem de Blécourt, Robin Briggs and Owen Davies
Owen Davies
Owen Davies is a reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. His main field of research is on the history of modern and contemporary witchcraft and magic....
, that the term "cunning folk" could be applied to all of these figures as well to reflect a pan-European tradition.
Societal role
Britain in the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods was a place where folk magic was widely popular amongst much of the populace. Many individuals knew of some magical charms and spells, but there were also professionals who dealt in magic, including charmers, fortune tellers, astrologers and cunning folk, the latter of whom were known to "possess a broader and deeper knowledge of such techniques and more experience in using them" than the average person; it was also believed that they "embodied or could work with supernaturalSupernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
power which greatly increased the effectiveness of the operations concerned."
The term "cunning man" or "cunning woman" was most widely used in southern England, the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
, and in Wales. Such people were also frequently known across England as "wizards", "wise men" or "wise women", or in southern England and Wales as "conjurers
Conjuration
Conjuration is used in many video games, mainly RPGs, where it is usually referred to as summoning.* A notable example is the Final Fantasy franchise which incorporates summoning of monsters to fight alongside the characters....
" or as "dyn hysbys" in the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
. In Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
they were sometimes referred to as "pellars", which some etymologists suggest originated from the term "expellers", referring to the practice of expelling evil spirits. Nineteenth-century folklorists
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
often used the term "white witch
White witch
White witch and good witch are qualifying terms in English used to distinguish practitioners of folk magic for benevolent purposes from practitioners of malevolent witchcraft...
" to refer to cunning folk, although this was infrequently used amongst the ordinary people themselves, as for them the term "witch" had general connotations of malevolence and evil.
Demographics
The number of cunning folk in Britain at any one time is uncertain. Nevertheless historian Owen Davies has speculated that, based on his own research into English cunning folk (which excluded those in Scotland and Wales), that "Up until the mid nineteenth century there may have been as many as several thousand working in England at any given time." Although there was a twentieth-century stereotype that cunning folk usually lived and worked in rural areas of Britain, evidence shows that there were also many within urban towns and cities. Around two-thirds of recorded cunning folk in Britain were male, although their female counterparts were "every bit as popular and commercially successful as the men, and indeed this was one of the few means by which ordinary women could achieve a respected and independent position" in British society of the time.The cunning folk of Britain were often from the societal class that included artisans, tradesmen, and farmers, and as such were commonly at least semi-literate and of a higher social position than common labourers. In many cases they continued in their ordinary line of work alongside earning money as a professional cunning man or woman in order to gain the maximum possible income. In almost all cases, cunning folk worked either alone, as a solitary magical practitioner, or with one other person, such as a spouse or sibling. The only known exception was in early nineteenth-century Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, where a group of cunning men used to meet in a group centred around the most prominent of their members, a cunning fellow called Rawlinson. This method of working alone was one factor that separated the cunning folk from the stereotype of witches then prevalent in Britain, which often held that these witches met together in groups, sometimes known as covens, and at times flew through the air in order to get to their meeting points.
Becoming a cunning person
In most cases, it seems that individuals simply set themselves up as cunning folk with no former basis or training, although others came from a family background of professional magical practitioners. One of the most prominent examples of a family dynasty of cunning people was the Harries family from Cwrt y Cadno in Wales; Henry Harries (1739–1805) was a yeoman farmer who had an interest in astrology and medicine but did not practice as a cunning man, whilst his son, John (1785–1839), and two grandsons Henry and John instead became professionals in the field. As Owen Davies remarked, "There are a number of reasons why people may have wanted to become cunning-folk. The desire for money, power or social prestige, and even to do good, all undoubtedly played their part." Whether they genuinely believed that they had magical powers or not varied from practitioner to practitioner, with some later admitting in court that they didn't have powers but were simply pretending that they did in order to fool people for their money. Indeed, there was a great deal of variability amongst the British cunning folk, with historian Ronald Hutton remarking that "they appear as a remarkably heterogeneous collection of individuals, divided by at least as many characteristics as those which they had in common.""Cunning-folk operated in a competitive market where reputations and first impressions were very important", and as such often worked on their personal promotion. Some were known to travel relatively large distances to visit their clients as well as making calls during the night if requested. A number, though by no means all, were also known to wear "striking costume or home decorations" in order to enhance their reputations as magical individuals, for instance, a nineteenth-century cunning woman in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
wore a conical hat and a robe with mystical signs on it, as well as hanging herbs and papers from the ceiling of her home. Similarly, James "Cunning" Murrell, the nineteenth-century cunning man of Hadleigh
Hadleigh, Essex
Hadleigh is a town in southeast Essex, England, on the A13 between Benfleet and Leigh-on-Sea with a population of about 18,300.-History:Hadleigh is known for its castle, and the country park that surrounds it. The castle has been a romantic ruin for a few hundred years, but parts of two towers are...
in south-east Essex, wore iron goggles and carried a whalebone umbrella whenever he went out, whilst Mother Merne, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century wise woman of Milborne Down in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
kept guinea pig
Guinea pig
The guinea pig , also called the cavy, is a species of rodent belonging to the family Caviidae and the genus Cavia. Despite their common name, these animals are not in the pig family, nor are they from Guinea...
s, black hens, a black goat and a black cat
Black cat
A black cat is a feline with black fur. It is not a particular breed of cat and may be mixed or of a specific breed. The Bombay, known for its sleek black fur, is an example of a black cat. The all-black pigmentation is equally prevalent in both male and female cats...
, the latter of which would sit on her shoulder during consultations with clients.
Services
The cunning folk typically performed a number of different services in their local communities, using what they claimed to be their own magical powers.Opposing witchcraft
One of the most common services that the cunning folk provided was in combating the effects of malevolent witchcraftWitchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
and the curses which these witches had allegedly placed upon people. Alongside this, they were also known at times for identifying witches, and in this manner they were "the only healers to offer a comprehensive package of anti-witch measures." British cunning folk were known to use a variety of methods in order to cure someone of malevolent sorcery, including tackling the witch either physically or through the law courts, breaking the spell over the individual by magical means, and by using charms and potions to remove the witchcraft from the afflicted person's body. As historian Owen Davies
Owen Davies
Owen Davies is a reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. His main field of research is on the history of modern and contemporary witchcraft and magic....
noted, "Most cunning-folk employed a multi-pronged approach to curing witchcraft, using a combination of written charms, magic rituals, prayers and herbal medicines, thereby appealing to the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of the sick."
One of the best known means by which the cunning folk opposed witchcraft was through the use of witch bottle
Witch Bottle
The witch bottle is a very old spell device. Its purpose is to draw in and trap harmful intentions directed at its owner. Folk magic contends that the witch bottle protects against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteracts spells cast by witches....
s; ceramic bottles containing such items as urine, nails, hair and nail clippings which it was believed, when put together, would cause harm to the malevolent witch. Another commonly used method was to take the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
of an animal, and to pierce it with pins, in order to do harm to the witch, whilst other cunning folk preferred to make dolls of the witch out of rags and other materials and then pierce them with pins, again with the intention of inflicting physical harm on the witch, and breaking their bewitchment.
Amongst the common people who often went to the cunning folk for aid, these magical practitioners were seen as being very much distinct from witches; as Davies noted, to the average person "witches were evil but cunning-folk were useful". However, a number of theologians and figures of Church authority nonetheless believed that the cunning-folk, in practicing magic, were also, like the witches, following the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
, a malevolent supernatural entity in Christian mythology. Such a viewpoint was not constrained to any one particular form of Christianity in this period, but was found amongst the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, the Anglican
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and also various forms of Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
. A number of early Quakers, a Protestant denomination founded in the seventeenth century, were particularly vocal against the cunning folk, perhaps because they themselves were accused by their critics of using sorcery to attract new members, and so wanted to heavily distance themselves from such practices.
Locating property and criminals
The cunning folk were also commonly employed to locate missing or stolen property and uncover the perpetrator: this was of particular importance throughout the Early Modern period, when peoples' possessions were far more valued than in later centuries as they were expensive to replace, particularly for the poor. There are recorded cases where the cunning folk would also promise to ensure that the stolen property was returned, and in some of these they did prove successful, with the thief promptly returning what they had taken, something which may have been out of their own fear of being cursed by the cunning folk. At times, such cunning individuals were also known to locate missing personsMissing Persons
Missing Persons is an American band who plays a blend of New Wave and Pop rock. The band was founded in 1980 in Los Angeles by guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, vocalist Dale Bozzio, and drummer Terry Bozzio. They went on to add bassist Patrick O'Hearn and keyboardist Chuck Wild. Dale's quirky voice...
: an example of this was reported in 1617, as John Redman of Sutton discovered that his wife had left him, and "went from wizard to wizard, or, as they term them 'wise men', to have them bring her again".
The methods used to perform this service differed amongst the cunning folk, although astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
was one of the most commonly used ways. In some cases, the cunning man or woman would instead get their client to give them a list of names of people whom they suspected of having stolen their property, and from which they would use various forms of divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
to come to a conclusion regarding who was the guilty party, or alternately they would get their client to scry
Scrying
Scrying is a magic practice that involves seeing things psychically in a medium, usually for purposes of obtaining spiritual visions and less often for purposes of divination or fortune-telling. The most common media used are reflective, translucent, or luminescent substances such as crystals,...
with a reflective surface such as a mirror, crystal ball
Crystal ball
A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball believed by some people to aid in the performance of clairvoyance. It is sometimes known as a shew stone...
, piece of glass or bowl of water, and then allow them to see an image of the culprit themselves. According to historian Owen Davies, this was an "alternative, less risky strategy" than divination or astrology because it allowed the client to confirm "their own suspicions without cunning-folk having to name someone explicitly."
The concept of cunning folk locating criminals using magical means concerned a number of people in power in England, and there are records from London in the fourteenth century showing that certain cunning folk themselves were brought to trial because of their accusations against other members of the community: for instance, in 1382 a cunning man named Robert Berewold was brought to court after accusing a woman named Johanna Wolsy of stealing a drinking bowl from a house in St Mildred Poultry. In the trial, it emerged that Berewold had come to his conclusion through a form of divination known as "turning the loaf" where a wooden peg was stuck into the top of a loaf of bread with four knives then stuck into the sides. A list of names would then be spoken, and according to the theory, the loaf would supposedly turn when the name of the thief was spoken. Berewold was found guilty of making unsubstantiated and damaging claims, and punished in the pillory
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
.
Healing
The cunning folk were widely visited for aid in healing various ailments for both humans and their livestock, particularly from poorer members of the community who could not afford the fees charged by apothecaries and physicians. Records indicate that the cunning folk used a wide variety of different methods to cure their clients, "from the simply laying on of hands to the use of elaborate rituals." At times, they would use various herbs and plants to develop medicines and folk cures that they believed would help. At other times, they employed more overtly magical means, such as the use of charms and prayers, which were usually very much Christian in nature, commonly invoking the power of the Christian TrinityTrinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
to heal the sick. In keeping with this Christian basis, sometimes religious objects like holy water
Holy water
Holy water is water that, in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and some other churches, has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects; or as a means of repelling evil.The use for baptism and...
, candle wax or Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
wafers were used in healing. On occasion, live animals would be used as a part of the treatment, for instance in 1604, the Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
cunning women Katherine Thompson and Anne Nevelson were convicted by a court for placing a duck's beak to a woman's mouth whilst reciting charms as a form of healing.
Cunning folk at times were also known to offer abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
s, usually via a poisonous potion that would kill the foetus, but there were cases where the potion also made the pregnant woman very ill.
Other services
British cunning folk would also often be involved in love magicLove magic
Love magic is the attempt to bind the passions of another, or to capture them as a sex object through magical means rather than through direct activity. It can be implemented in a variety of ways, such as written spells, dolls, charms, amulets, love potions, or different rituals.Love magic has...
, offering a number of services pertaining to sex and relationships. One form of this was a form of fortune telling where they would divine the name or appearance of a clients' future lover, often through the use of palmistry, scrying or astrology. Another popular practice of the cunning folk was the casting of spells or charms to ensure a spouse's fidelity, preventing them from committing adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
, for instance, a cunning man from Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, Peter Banks, was charged in 1673–74 for offering to draw up a magical contract which would bind a husband to staying loyal to his wife for a year.
A number of cunning folk claimed to have the ability to locate treasure
Treasure
Treasure is a concentration of riches, often one which is considered lost or forgotten until being rediscovered...
, and at times were employed by people in this capacity. In a number of these cases it was believed that a supernatural entity, such as a demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
, spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
or fairy
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
was guarding the hidden treasure, and that a cunning practitioner was needed to overcome them using magical means.
There were also claims that certain cunning folk were known to occasionally perform bewitching or cursing
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
for a fee, which under some definitions would enable them to be considered to be witches as well as cunning people. The folklorist Eric Maple, after examining a number of nineteenth-century cunning folk in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, noted that one of them, George Pickingill
George Pickingill
George Pickingill was an Englishman, believed a cunning man and farm labourer who lived and worked in the Essex village of Canewdon...
, also performed cursing for clients, but that the other whom he examined, James Murrell, considered it immoral and so did not. Indeed, other Essex cunning folk were associated with witchcraft, notable in the village of Sible Hedingham
Sible Hedingham
Sible Hedingham is a large village and civil parish in the Colne Valley in Braintree District of Essex, in England. It has a population of 3,665....
, where there lived an elderly French cunning man who had had his tongue cut out at some point in his past, and who was subsequently dumb, as well as being deaf. As a result he was known as "Dummy
Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham
Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham was the pseudonym of an unidentified elderly man who was one of the last people to be charged with witchcraft in England in the 19th century....
" in the local community, who generally disliked him, largely because of his 'otherness' in being both foreign and disabled, and rumours spread that he was a witch who would curse them. In 1863 a drunken mob attacked him, throwing him in a river to see if he would sink or float (a traditional method of identifying a witch, who it was believed would float, whereas an innocent would sink), but the resulting shock killed the elderly man, who was in his eighties. Another notable case of a cunning person performing cursing and malevolent witchcraft comes from nineteenth-century Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
, where a wise woman who went by the pseudonym of "Virtue" used to demand gifts from her neighbours, threatening them with cursing if they refused.
Magical beliefs and praxes
As historian Willem de Blécort noted, "the different services the [cunning-folk] provided did not form part of an overall 'magic' system". Indeed, whilst the magical practices of the cunning folk were typically folk magical in content, there were also those who dabbled in ceremonial magicCeremonial magic
Ceremonial magic, also referred to as high magic and as learned magic, is a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. It is named as such because the works included are characterized by...
, or "high magic", based primarily on what they had gleaned from books of magic, or grimoire
Grimoire
A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons...
s.
Spellcasting and charms
The cunning folk often produced written charms for their clients, which would be utilised in a wide variety of manners, such as to protect from witchcraft or to help procure love. These typically contained a series of words that were believed to have magical powers, and which were commonly drawn from either grimoires or from the Bible. These were produced on both paperPaper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
, which was the cheaper option, or, in certain cases, parchment
Parchment
Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned; therefore, it is very...
, which according to certain magical texts should have been made from the skin of a virgin or unborn calf. "Most written charms contained a strong religious content", typically invoking various names of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
(such as Elohim
Elohim
Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or...
, Adonai, Tetragrammaton
Tetragrammaton
The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...
etc) or of His angels in order to help the particular charm to be effective. In some cases they quoted whole sections from the Bible, sometimes in either Latin, Greek or Hebrew rather than English, which was the common language of the period. At other times they made use of magic words, such as "Abracadabra
Abracadabra
Abracadabra is an incantation used as a magic word in stage magic tricks, and historically was believed to have healing powers when inscribed on an amulet...
" or "sator arepo tenet opera rotas", the latter of which spells the same when read front-to-back or back-to-front. Such charms were then sometimes sewn into a bag, or placed within a bottle, and either carried about by the client or placed somewhere in their home.
In the nineteenth century, a ritual known as the toad bone rite became popular, particularly in East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
but also in other areas of the country, amongst both cunning folk and members of magical organizations such as the Scottish Society of the Horseman's Word and East Anglian Society of Horsemen. Originally based upon an ancient southern European magical practice documented by Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, it had later been purported in the works of Cornelius Agrippa and Reginald Scot
Reginald Scot
Reginald Scot was an English country gentleman and Member of Parliament, now remembered as the author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft, which was published in 1584. It was written against the belief in witches, to show that witchcraft did not exist...
, which were read by a number of literate cunning folk. Although there were many variations, the ritual typically involved the killing of a toad or frog, having its flesh stripped from the bones by ants, and then throwing the bone into a stream at night. It was believed that this would grant the practitioner, who was known as a Toad Man, the ability to perform certain magical tasks.
Grimoires
When printed books on the occult, particularly in the English language, had begun to be produced, a number of cunning folk obtained, and made use of, grimoireGrimoire
A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons...
s, or books of magic. In many cases they made a big show of the fact that they owned such tomes, which would have appeared impressive in the minds of many of their customers in a period where only a minority of people were able to read and write in Britain. Indeed, some cunning folk appeared to own these grimoires purely for cosmetic reasons, to impress their clients, and did not actually make use of any of the magical rituals contained within them.
Whilst grimoires had been around in Europe since the ancient period, and a large number of new grimoires had been produced during the Medieval, they had remained highly expensive and hand written items that the average person would not have had access to. In the Early Modern period, this began to change as the invention of printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
allowed grimoires to be produced in greater quantities; initially this had primarily been in languages other than English, particularly Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, but in the mid-sixteenth century, English translations of Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus, O.P. , also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl...
' Book of Secrets were produced, whilst the printing of English-language grimoires increased in the seventeenth century. Another significant grimoire to be published in English was James Freake's translation of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, which "must have generated a good deal of interest among [the cunning folk] and other less well-educated magical practitioners at the time." Equally popular was the English astrologer Robert Turner's translation of the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy (1655), which was erroneously attributed to having been written by Agrippa.
However, perhaps "the most influential vehicle for the dissemination of high magic to a wider audience was, in fact, Reginald Scot
Reginald Scot
Reginald Scot was an English country gentleman and Member of Parliament, now remembered as the author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft, which was published in 1584. It was written against the belief in witches, to show that witchcraft did not exist...
's Discoverie of Witchcraft
Discoverie of Witchcraft
The Discoverie of Witchcraft was a partially sceptical book published by the English gentleman Reginald Scot in 1584, and intended as an exposé of medieval witchcraft...
", a book first published in the early seventeenth century in which Scot condemned the cunning folk as liars and tricksters, but in which he had also provided a wide variety of talisman
Talisman
Talisman have several meanings:*TalismanBooks and novels* The Talisman , a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott* The Talisman , a novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub...
s, charms and rituals as examples of what the cunning folk and ceremonial magicians performed. This book was subsequently republished on a number of occasions, and copies were obtained by a wide variety of cunning craft practitioners who used the information in the work to enhance their own magical praxes.
Familiar spirits and Fairyland
Some cunning folk were known to employ supernaturalSupernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
entities known as familiar spirit
Familiar spirit
In European folklore and folk-belief of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits were supernatural entities believed to assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic...
s to aid them in their practice of magic. These spirits, which were also believed to work for witches as well, are referenced in a large number of the witch trial records from the Early Modern period. After examining these accounts, historian Emma Wilby
Emma Wilby
Emma Wilby is a British historian specialising in the magical beliefs of Early Modern Britain. An honorary fellow in History at the University of Exeter, England, she has published two books examining witchcraft and the cunning folk of this period...
noted how in the descriptions given of familiar spirits by both cunning folk and those accused of witchcraft, there was "a pervading sense of naturalism", with most familiars resembling "relatively ordinary humans or animals with only slight, if any, visual anomalies." For instance, folklorist Eric Maple noted that in the English region of East Anglia
East Anglia
East Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
during the latter nineteenth century, it was commonly thought that familiar spirits, which were often referred to as "imps
IMPS
The OMA Instant Messaging and Presence Service is an Open Mobile Alliance enabler for Instant Messaging and Presence. The Wireless Village consortium developed the first cut of the specifications. After Wireless Village was merged with OMA, its specs became OMA IMPS 1.0 specifications. IMPS is...
" in that region, took the form of white mice. There were however some exceptions to these naturalistic familiars, for instance a woman in Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
was believed to have a familiar spirit that was a cross between a frog and a rat.
Wilby identified many similarities between the familiars recorded as serving cunning folk and those serving witches, with a general, though by no means universal, attribution of cunning folk's familiars with being benevolent and helping people, whilst those belonging to witches were more often thought of as being malevolent and causing harm. Again, in general the former were often referred to as "fairies" and the latter as "demons". Wilby noted how both British cunning folk and witches often described similar scenarios for how they had first encountered their familiar: most prominent of these was the claim that the familiar had simply appeared spontaneously whilst they went about their everyday activities, whilst other claims held that the witch or cunning person had inherited it from another magical practitioner, who was usually a family member, or that they had been given it by a more powerful spirit. The magical practitioner and the familiar then set about on a working relationship, sometimes solidified in a pact.
At times, the familiar spirit was believed to take the cunning person on a visionary journey to a place called Elfhame (literally meaning "elf-home"), which is now often referred to as Fairyland
Fairyland
Fairyland commonly refers to the land of fairies, in folklore.Fairyland may also refer to:* Álfheimr, the abode of the elves in Norse mythology* Elfhame or Elfland, the abode of the elves in English and Lowland Scottish folklore...
. In these trips, the cunning folk's soul was typically believed to go with their familiar on a journey into a hill, within which they would find a great subterranean fairy hall. In the hall, they would find a company of fairies, led by a king and queen, and would take part in feasting, drinking and dancing. Wilby connected the cunning folk's trip to Fairyland with the witches' believed trip to the sabbath
Sabbath
Sabbath in Christianity is a weekly day of rest or religious observance, derived from the Biblical Sabbath.Seventh-day Sabbath observance, i.e. resting from labor from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, is practiced by seventh-day Sabbatarians...
meeting, which she also believed was a visionary journey. She accepted the theory, based upon the ideas of earlier historians such as Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg is a noted historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for his Il formaggio e I vermi which examined the beliefs of an Italian heretic, Menocchio, from Montereale Valcellina.- Biography :The son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg, he was born...
and Éva Pócs
Éva Pócs
Éva Pócs is associate professor in the Department of Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology at Janus Pannonius University, Pécs, Hungary, and president of the Folklore Section of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society. She is an author of several books dealing with supernatural beliefs and patterns of...
, that the concept of the witches' sabbath was developed through the Christian demonizing of earlier pre-Christian concepts of the visit to Fairyland.
Historian Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
remarked that "It is quite possible that pre-Christian mythology lies behind this tradition" of a belief in familiar spirits. Such an idea was supported by Wilby, who compared the accounts of familiar spirits in Britain with anthropological
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and ethnographic
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
accounts of helper spirits given by shamans
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
in both Siberia and North America. Noting a wide range of similarities between the two, she came to the conclusion that British belief in familiars must have been a surviving remnant of earlier animistic
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
and shamanic beliefs in the pre-Christian religions of the island.
Christian elements
Britain throughout the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods was an almost entirely ChristianChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
society (with the only exception being a small Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
population), although during this period there was a gradual shift from adherence to Roman Catholicism to forms of Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
and Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
following the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
in the sixteenth century. It was because of this that the cunning folk operating in this era typically worked within a Christian framework and world view.
This Christian influence was evident in much of their magical praxes. For instance, the historian Owen Davies believed that the written charms supplied by cunning folk displayed the "intrinsic Christian content of [their] magic" and the influence of mystical and magical words taken from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. Historian Ronald Hutton concurred with this assessment, remarking that "Looking at the recorded charms dispensed by magical practitioners, it is obvious that many – perhaps the majority – are Christian in character. They quote from the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, or appeal to the Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
, or to Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, or to saints. In most cases, to be sure, they are using the trappings and symbols of Christianity with little regard to what the churchmen would have regarded as its essence; the Bible ... This is, however, a large part of what popular Christianity had always been about, and something that had caused learned and devout members of the faith to tear their hair at intervals ever since the time of the Church Fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
."
In keeping with the general population of the time, there were those cunning folk who were little more than nominal in their Christian belief as well as those that were devout. This was illustrated by historian James Obelkevitch in his examination of nineteenth-century popular religion in the southern part of the Lincolnshire chalk hills, when he note that the three main cunning people of the area, whilst each holding to a Christian worldview, each had different particular religious attachment. One of these, "Fiddler" Fynes, regularly attended church services and was an essentially conventional Christian for that period, whilst the second, John Worsdale of Lincoln, was similarly devout but was unconventional in that he rejected the need for a professional clergy. The third, Stainton of Louth, believed in a Christian theology and cosmology, but saw little point in worshipping the Christian God because he felt that in working with magic, "the Devil has hold" of him.
Although some twentieth and twenty-first century Neopagan
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
authors, such as Rae Beth, have claimed that the British cunning folk were followers of a surviving, pre-Christian "pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
" religion, this is something rejected by historians. As Ronald Hutton noted, whilst there was pagan influences in some folk magical charms and a possible connection through the belief in familiar spirits, there is "no known case of a cunning person or a charmer calling upon a pagan deity."
Medieval period
In England during the Early Medieval period, various forms of folk magic could be found amongst the Anglo-SaxonsAnglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
, who referred to such practitioners as wicca (male) or wicce (female), or at times also as dry, practitioners of drycraeft, the latter of which have been speculated as being anglicised terms for the Irish drai, a term referring to druid
Druid
A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....
s, who appeared as anti-Christian sorcerers in much Irish literature of the period. Some of the spells and charms that had been used in the Anglo-Saxon pagan era continued to be used following Christianization. However, as historian Owen Davies noted, "although some such pre-Christian magic continued, to label it pagan is to misrepresent the people who used it and the context in which it was used."
The extent to which elements from pre-Christian pagan religions influenced the cunning folk is debatable. Owen Davies believed that "few historical insights are to be gained from seeking an archaic or shamanic lineage for cunning-folk." Such a claim has subsequently been challenged by Emma Wilby, who has put forward the case that the belief in familiar spirits, and the visionary journeys into Fairyland that sometimes accompanied them, were survivals from "pre-Christian animism
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
".
England and Wales
In EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, which had been politically united following the Norman invasion of Wales
Norman invasion of Wales
The Norman invasion of Wales began shortly after the Norman conquest of England under William the Conqueror, who believed England to be his birthright...
in the Late Medieval period, cunning folk had operated throughout the latter part of the Medieval and into the Early Modern period. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there had been no attempt to illegalise the cunning craft, although private law suits had been brought against some of them by those clients who felt that they had been cheated out of their money. This changed with the Witchcraft Act of 1542, enacted under the reign of Henry VIII, which targeted both witches and cunning folk, and which prescribed the death penalty for such crimes as using invocations and conjurations to locate treasure or to cast a love spell. This law was repealed no later than 1547, under the reign of Henry's son Edward VI, something that the historian Owen Davies
Owen Davies
Owen Davies is a reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. His main field of research is on the history of modern and contemporary witchcraft and magic....
believed was due to those in power changing their opinion on the law: they believed that either the death penalty was too harsh for such crimes or that the practice of the cunning craft was a moral issue that was better for the Church to deal with in ecclesiastic courts rather than a problem that had to be sorted out by the state.
For the following few decades, the magical practices of the cunning folk remained legal, despite opposition from certain religious authorities. It was a time of great religious upheaval in the country as Edward's successor, his sister Mary I
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, reintroduced Roman Catholicism, before Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
was once again reimposed under Elizabeth I. In 1563, after the return of power to the Anglican Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, a bill was passed by parliament designed to illegalise "Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts", again being aimed at both the alleged witches and the cunning folk. However, this law was not as harsh as its earlier predecessor, with the death penalty being reserved for those who were believed to have conjured an evil spirit or murdered someone through magical means, whilst those for whom the use of magic was a first offence faced a year's imprisonment and four stints in the pillory
Pillory
The pillory was a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse, sometimes lethal...
. Nonetheless, this law would have little effect on the cunning folk, as "the attention and focus of the courts shifted away from the activities of cunning-folk and towards the maleficium of supposed witches" – the Witch Hunt that had been raging in Scotland and in many parts of continental Europe had finally arrived in England.
Whilst across England, many people were accused of witchcraft by members of their local communities and put on trial, the cunning folk very rarely suffered a similar fate. It was unusual for a cunning man or woman to actually be accused of witchcraft; in the county of Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
for instance, whereas around four hundred people had been put on trial for witchcraft, only four of those were identifiably cunning folk. However, many of the professional witch-hunters and theologians continued to proclaim the cunning craft as being the same as witchcraft, with them both being caused by the Devil. One pamphlet published that espoused these views claimed that the cunning folk should be "most cruelly executed: for that no punishment can bee [sic] thought upon, be it never so high a degree of torment, which may be deemed sufficient for such a divelish [sic] and danable [sic] practise." Their views however were not supported by the general population, who continued to see a distinct difference between witchcraft and cunning craft, with the witch-hunter John Stearne, an associate of Matthew Hopkins
Matthew Hopkins
Matthew Hopkins was an English witchhunter whose career flourished during the time of the English Civil War. He claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament...
, remarking that whilst he and Hopkins wanted to prosecute the cunning folk, they could not because "men rather uphold them, and say, why should any man be questioned for doing good."
Meanwhile, the idea of the cunning folk began to appear in the literature of the period. In 1638, the playwright Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood
Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.-Early years:...
published his comedy, The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, whilst in 1684 another playwright, Edward Ravenscroft
Edward Ravenscroft
Edward Ravenscroft , English dramatist, belonged to an ancient Flintshire family.He was entered at the Middle Temple, but devoted his attention mainly to literature. Among his pieces are...
, published his own play about a cunning woman. With the decline in the witch trials in the latter part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, partly due to the rise of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
amongst the educated elite, a new law was introduced, the Witchcraft Act of 1736. Unlike earlier laws, this did not accept the existence of magic, and was designed to be used to prosecute those who claimed magical powers as being fraudulent; it could therefore be very damaging to the cunning profession. The new regulations imposed by the Witchcraft Act of 1736 laid down a maximum penalty of a year's imprisonment for the crime of deceiving people by claiming magical powers, but in effect, during the rest of the eighteenth century, there were very few prosecutions, with most authorities not bothering to enforce this particular law.
Scotland
Throughout the Early Modern period, Scotland remained a distinct political entity from England and Wales, having its own independent government and monarchyMonarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
. However, like the rest of Britain, it also saw cunning folk operating within its borders.
Nineteenth and twentieth centuries
By the nineteenth century, Scotland had been politically united with England, Wales and also IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, controlled by a central government in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Such a political union also brought about an increase in cultural diffusion and unity between the various nations. It was in nineteenth-century Scotland that an agricultural organization that acted as both a trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
and a magical fraternity known as the Society of the Horseman's Word was founded. Its members, whilst not being cunning folk, practiced folk magic, and soon an English alternative, the Society of Horsemen, had also been founded. The spread of such magical groups and their ideas could be seen in the diffusion of the toad bone rite, which was used by such horseman's groups and various cunning folk, and examples of which could be found scattered across Britain, from Nevern
Nevern
Nevern is a small village or hamlet, of just a few houses in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. It lies in the valley of the River Nevern close to the Preseli Hills of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park east of Newport.-Nevern Parish Church:...
in Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
to East Anglia in England.
At the start of the nineteenth century, the popularity of cunning folk continued, and there was still a large and lucrative market for their services, for instance in 1816, there were eight different wise women working independently in the English coastal town of Whitby
Whitby
Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...
. Nonetheless, the nineteenth century also saw an increase in the numbers of those cunning folk being prosecuted under the Witchcraft Act of 1736, possibly because "members of the social elite came to perceive that a faith in magic [far from having been eradicated as they had hoped,] seemed to be as prevalent among the populace as it had been a hundred years before, even while a growing political turbulence among commoners gave their rulers a new interest in the idea of education and civility as stabilizing forces." Soon after this, in 1824, a new law commonly referred to as the Vagrancy Act 1824
Vagrancy Act 1824
The Vagrancy Act 1824 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was introduced in 1824 as a measure to deal with specific problems in England following the Napoleonic Wars...
was introduced, bringing about a further blow to the cunning profession by outlawing "persons pretending or professing to tell fortunes, or using any subtle craft, means and device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose." The enacting of the law led to the increased prosecutions of cunning folk, something that would only begin to wane in the 1910s.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of cunning folk across Britain had dropped relatively dramatically from that of a century before, and by the 1940s they had essentially vanished from the country. Despite this, other professional practitioners of popular magic, such as astrologers and fortune tellers, continued to remain popular. The historian Owen Davies believed that the primary reason for the decline in the cunning craft was the declining belief in the existence of malevolent witchcraft in the country (something brought about by modernization and increasing education and literacy rates), and therefore the collapse of any need for the anti-witchcraft measures that the cunning folk offered as their primary service. Whilst many of their magical practices continued to be used, being performed by folk and ceremonial magicians or being absorbed into new religious movement
New religious movement
A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s that used magic such as Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
, Davies concluded that the actual profession itself died out. Historian Ronald Hutton however believed that it was more accurate to state that the cunning craft, rather than dying out, "changed character" by being absorbed into other magical currents. The decline of the cunning craft in Britain was not however indicative of other European nations: in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
for example, cunning practitioners continued operating right into the early twenty-first century.
Modern Occultists
Some of the magical practices and charms of the cunning-folk were passed down and continued to be used after the decline of the profession, although due to the fact that they were no longer typically used to fight malevolent witchcraft in a professional sense, historian Owen Davies did not believe that those who practiced them could be accurately seen as cunning-folk. As he noted:- How many contemporary white-witches regularly practice both thief magic and unbewitching on a commercial basis? A self-styled wise-woman today who does not deal with bewitched clients is not a wise-woman as defined historically. [Malevolent] Witchcraft was the glue that held the concept of cunning-folk together... This is not to belittle the role of modern magical healers. They continue to provide relief and comfort to people, just as cunning-folk did. Rather, it is an attempt to clarify where they really stand in relation to those formerly described as cunning-folk. People who refer to themselves as such ought to be fully aware of their relationship to their historical namesakes, and be aware of the conceptual and social differences that separate them.
He noted that many of those currently referring to themselves as cunning-folk, wise women, white witches and the like during the 1990s and 2000s were explicitly Neopagan
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
in their faith, which influenced their magical workings. He also noted that many of them referred to themselves as "hedge witches", a term that was first developed by the writer Rae Beth in her book Hedge Witch: A Guide to Solitary Witchcraft (1990). Beth explicitly stated that the magical practices that she was purporting were the original practices of the cunning-folk, but she had incorrectly connected them to ancient paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
and the Witch-Cult
Witch-cult hypothesis
The Witch-cult is the term for a hypothetical pre-Christian, pagan religion of Europe that survived into at least the early modern period. As late as the 19th and early 20th centuries, some scholars had postulated that European witchcraft was part of a Satanic plot to overthrow Christianity; most...
. This was something Davies criticised, stating that:
- there is still a considerable gulf between hedge witches and cunning-folk, not only in relation to the unbewitching trade, but also from a religious point of view. Cunning-folk were essentially Christian. Whether conscientious churchgoers or not, they employed the Bible and Christian rites and rituals. Hedge witches, on the other hand, are mostly [Neo]pagans in some form or other. They worship natureNatureNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and have an animistic conceptionAnimismAnimism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
of the physical environment. This, in turn, is mirrored in the content of the spells and charms they use.
Historian Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
noted that the low magic of the cunning folk was one of the lesser influences upon the development of the Neopagan religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
and related witchcraft-based groups in the early twentieth century. For instance, one of the pioneering English Neopagan Witches, Robert Cochrane, who would describe himself under such titles as "pellar" and who led a coven
Coven
A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven....
known as the Clan of Tubal Cain in the early 1960s, allegedly contained elements borrowed from the cunning craft in his tradition, known as Cochrane's Craft
Cochrane's Craft
Cochrane’s Craft, which is also known as Cochranianism, is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Witchcraft founded in 1951 by the English Witch Robert Cochrane, who himself claimed to have been taught it by some of his elderly family members, a claim that is disputed by some historians such as...
. Indeed, Shani Oates, one of his later followers, claimed that his tradition "preserves many elements of 19th century cunning and folk magics". Hutton however also noted that although many Neopagan Witches consider themselves to be the heirs of the cunning people, they "have much more in common with the stereotypical images of witches in nineteenth-century popular culture; the very beings who were regarded as the natural enemies of the charmers and cunning people."
Historiography
Whilst the historian Keith ThomasKeith Thomas (historian)
Sir Keith Vivian Thomas is a Welsh historian, best known as the author of Religion and the Decline of Magic and Man and the Natural World.-Biography:...
had touched on the subject of English popular magic in his Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), in a 1994 article on the subject of the cunning folk, the historian Willem de Blécourt stated that the study of the subject, "properly speaking, has yet to start." These ideas were echoed in 1999, when the historian Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
, in his The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, remarked that the study of the cunning folk and European folk magic was "notoriously, an area that has been comparatively neglected by academic scholars." Nonetheless, a number of articles on the subject were published in the late 1990s, primarily by the historian Owen Davies
Owen Davies
Owen Davies is a reader in Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. His main field of research is on the history of modern and contemporary witchcraft and magic....
, who in 2003 published Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History (which was later republished under the altered title of Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History in 2007). This was followed in 2005 with the publication of Emma Wilby
Emma Wilby
Emma Wilby is a British historian specialising in the magical beliefs of Early Modern Britain. An honorary fellow in History at the University of Exeter, England, she has published two books examining witchcraft and the cunning folk of this period...
's Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic, which took a somewhat different attitude to the cunning craft than Hutton and Davies, emphasising the spiritual as opposed to simply practical side to cunning folk's magic.
There are also examples of academic studies into specific British cunning folk. In 1960, the folklorist Eric Maple published articles on two nineteenth-century cunning men in East Anglia, James Murrell and George Pickingill
George Pickingill
George Pickingill was an Englishman, believed a cunning man and farm labourer who lived and worked in the Essex village of Canewdon...
. In 2004, Jason Semmens published a study of a nineteenth-century Cornish cunning-woman as The Witch of the West: Or, The Strange and Wonderful History of Thomasine Blight.
External links
- Cunning Folk Home page of Owen Davies, an authority on Cunning Folk
- Cornish Witchcraft Information on witchcraft, cunning-folk and cures in Cornwall by Jason Semmens.
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