Cunning Folk

Reviews

The achievement of Cunning Folk is to make pre-modern magic seem not only real, but also reasonable, interwoven into everyday life in ways that don’t feel antiquated. Through lively and extremely well-researched storytelling, Stanmore shows readers that for many people both medieval and modern, to believe in magic, to hope for magic, is part of being human. Before, during, and after the witch trials, purveyors of magic were in fact common, helpful community merchants. Cunning Folk brings us into this fascinating era with personal accounts that deepen and complicate the history of spellcasting, and offer inspiration for today’s practitioners. As Tabitha Stanmore delightfully recounts, magic played a major role in everyday life from the 1300s to the late 1600s, sometimes conducted by fraudsters but even more often by people who genuinely thought they had supernatural powers . . . Who could argue with Stanmore’s eloquent plea to treat the belief in magic by our ancestors with compassion rather than disdain? And, anyway, don’t we share their fascination in a magical universe? With hundreds of colorful incidents drawn from legal records, court chronicles and contemporary accounts, Stanmore hopscotches through history, exploring the uses to which cunning folk were put. Charming . . . Stanmore persuasively argues that [the cunning folk's] stories provide a window on the everyday life of premodern Europeans that proves more intimate than other forms of history. A delightful excursion . . . a window into the lives of medieval people whose worries pretty much line up with our own. An insightful book about medieval life and the power of belief. Despite an eventual government crackdown on the dark arts, between the 14th and 17th centuries folk magic stayed very much alive across England, according to this rich and lively account. Everyone from courtiers to peasants secretly consulted diviners, astrologers, charm makers and healers. How effective were they? It’s impossible to know, but fun to speculate. A significant follow-up to Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English’s seminal Witches, Midwives & Nurses, Cunning Folk offers a nuanced view into pre-modern spirituality, dispossessing us of the idea that all supernatural belief was relegated to ‘devil’s work.’ Service magic, as Stanmore illuminates for us, is not the same as witchcraft: in fact, cunning folk played an important role in medieval society as skilled practitioners of their crafts. Deeply researched, Cunning Folk is rich with primary source accounts that elucidate how service magic was used to treat the ills of everyday life in pre-modern and medieval Europe. Cunning Folk would make a welcome addition to any history-buff’s bookshelf. Connecting past to present, Stanmore proves that magic-seeking is deeply human; that medieval desires and impulses were not so different from today’s. Packed with vivid historical anecdotes, this is an intriguing insight into the magical lives of past people and the history of our own superstitions today. The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written. Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read. This is a brilliant book, written with wit and vigor. Tabitha Stanmore explores the pre-modern places where magic was real, offering not only practical solutions to ordinary problems but a way of feeling about the world, an emotional relationship between cosmic forces, anxious humans, and the mundane mysteries of their lives. I adore Cunning Folk. A truly fascinating and human book. A stand-out look at the real people behind the folkloric magic of medieval and early modern England. No other book reveals the strange and wondrous details of magic in English society in the way this intelligently written narrative does. It is new required reading for students of traditional witchcraft and researchers alike. Truly a fantastic read. Charming and informative . . . based in prodigious knowledge and impressive research . . . Cunning Folk is a sterling example of the ways in which a scholar can share the fruits of their research in an accessible (and enjoyable!) manner. Throughout the book, Stanmore’s perspective is refreshingly expansive and tolerant, understanding these centuries on their own terms and never ignoring the fact that practical magic was always intimately human, based in our desires and fears as they relate to our livelihoods, our loves, our health, our family, our future. Expand reviews