In my last post I started to define what a Cunning Man/Woman actually is (or mostly, was). Here are a few more important points that you should know...
CUNNING FOLK OR WITCHES? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
BORN OR MADE?
Cunning Folk worked alone, unlike witches who were thought to work
in covens, although there were rare exceptions when they would work
in a pair usually with a spouse or family member. There was no
formal training or initiation to become a Cunning person –
practitioners were often self taught from books available at the
time, such as the classical grimoires, cheap almanacs, and popular
compilations of charms, fortune telling, and folk astrology such as
those by Raphael. A few were mentored in person to be successors of
their local practitioner. Occasionally the trade was passed down
through families. In a time when literacy was low, the possession
of books gave Cunning folk legitimacy and credence. Further magical
prowess could be claimed by being the ubiquitous 'seventh son of a
seventh son' or having received fairy gifts (more on this topic
later).
CITY OR COUNTRY?
They were not necessarily country bumpkins either – Cunning Folk
could be found wherever people were found, in villages, towns or
cities. London had many well known practitioners. Owen Davies has
estimated that there were several thousand working in England alone.
Some popular charmers would travel long distances across the
country on call-outs, such was their demand and fame. My own fair
city of Bristol had its local Cunning men and women and I hope to
talk more about them in future posts as I feel they are my ancestors
– in a spiritual, geographical way of course!
PROSECUTION AND PERSECUTION
Cunning
Folk also were not particularly persecuted as witches were, and
although there were many laws against them, these were mainly
ignored by the layman. This is because, unlike witches, they were
seen as helpful to society by the common man in the street (a
position not usually shared by the authorities). Many of the
Cunning Folk put on trial were tried for things like fraud, falsely
accusing others of crimes, failing to provide services promised, and
so on, very rarely for charges of witchcraft or consorting with the
devil. It is recorded that in Essex, of the 400 people put on trial
for witchcraft, only 4 were Cunning Folk. Over time, as beliefs
changed, the laws against Cunning Folk also changed, from statutes
against practising magic and witchcraft in general, to the
fraudulent mediums act which we still have today. As a result, most
prosecutions in the 19th
Century were for 'false pretences' of having magical or psychic
powers.
PRACTICES
I
will go into the practices of Cunning Folk in detail in future posts, but for now suffice to say they were based on a mixture of
common folk beliefs (such as hanging a horseshoe above a door for
luck), Christian spoken charms and magical prayers based on
liturgical forms and ideas, adaptations of ancient Hebrew and Arabic
spells found in books such as the Sword of Moses, and (usually
simplified) ceremonial magic operations from grimoires like the Key
of Solomon. Perhaps the closest thing you can compare Cunning Craft
to (and this has been done a lot in recent years) is Hoodoo, which
is a Christian folk magic of the USA, itself a mixture of African,
European and Native American folk magic and beliefs. Many practices
are mirrored in both systems, probably because Hoodoo also
historically employed some of the same source books as Cunning
Craft, and immigrants to the states from Europe took their folk
magics with them to mingle with the then current local systems. The
rootworker of Hoodoo can be compared to the Cunning man in that they
fulfil the same role in their society and offer similar services
within a framework of Christian belief. In fact, a popular name for
Hoodoo and its practitioners is Conjure and Conjurers! I myself
practised Hoodoo for many years before discovering Cunning Craft,
and as I have some American ancestry, it is part of my heritage
also, being used by many of my American family members. I still use
a lot of Hoodoo methods so you will find them in some of the posts, although the material will be clearly marked as such to
avoid confusion. Hoodoo can sometimes help to 'fill in the blanks'
where time has obscured the detail of some British Cunning methods.
Likewise the current state of Hoodoo in America can paint a portrait
of how modern Cunning Craft in Britain might be had it not all but
died out in the twentieth century.
A BIT DODGY
An unfortunate point about historical Cunning Folk is that some of
them were unscrupulous. This is why most of the persecutions were
for things like fraud. Some knowingly deceived and ripped off their
more gullible clients for profit. Not by 'pretending' to have
magical powers you understand (viz., the fraudulent mediums act), as
most practitioners and clients believed they actually had these
powers (although authorities in the later centuries doubted this).
Mainly it was overcharging, promising to do work that was never
done, accusing people of crimes out of the blue and so on. This was
partly the reason the authorities were so against their practices,
they believed them to be troublemakers. Many were also flamboyant,
and experts at spin and self promotion. Of course it goes without
saying that a Cunning man today should never defraud or cheat their
clients. However, a certain amount of spectacle and
good-intentioned humbuggery (comparable to that of P T Barnum) can
help to draw customers and raise your profile. I will talk more
about this in future posts.
Hopefully these last two posts have given you a clearer picture and an insight into the world of the Cunning Practitioner. I will expand upon some of these points at a later date, but for now consider your crash course concluded!
Lux ex tenebris
Q et I
