Cunning folk

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

Abstract
The expanse of the Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean in the Welsh Borders is rich in references to nature and to the local cunning folk, but also it is the place of the ancient Romano-Celtic deity Abundantia. There is a phenomenological connection with this Goddess and the elementals, and the Otherworld also known as the Greenwood, as a place where practitioners meet the Fae. For cunning-folk and pagans, the relationship between the skies, in the form of the moon and the changing seasons (in the forests and valleys) are redolent of connection with ‘other-than-human-entities’. Their participation in rituals equates with flesh and place (being present in bodily form at the liminal threshold, as opposed to being present in the spiritual form/astral form);  practising Wica (a practical energy/force of creativity) and Unwitching which is in express distinction from Wicca (as named by Gerald Gardner). For an association of the landscape also facilitates creativity, as a stage for magical practice. Using ‘Wica’ in rituals is the same as ‘La force’ as observed by Jeanne Favret-Saada in her ‘Deadly Words’(1969), when she conducted some pioneering work on cunning folk in the Bocage of France in the late sixties.

Consideration is given to how elements of the occult: witchcraft, magic and sorcery may be identified in the archaeological record. Working definitions of occult terminology are established before proceeding to propose a new approach, which triangulates data from historic and folkloric sources with archaeological evidence, to establish contextual narratives that stand for the past. Excavation of an occult ritual site at Barway, Cambridgeshire is presented to demonstrate how the approach works in practice. Archaeological evidence, combined with local folklore and historic accounts of spells and sorcery, identify the site as the locus of occult activity performed by cunning folk, or ‘white’ witches, during the seventeenth-century.

KEYWORDS
OCCULT, CUNNING FOLK, WITCH, WITCHCRAFT, SPELL, MAGIC, SORCERY, FOLKLORE, EAST ANGLIA, ELY, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY, GRIMOIRE, PENDLE WITCH TRIAL, MATTHEW HOPKINS, JOHN STEARNE.

In the study of witchcraft and magic it is tempting to get caught up in the glamour of witches. Such fascination is perfectly comprehensible given the mass trials, maleficent magic, sabbaths, murder (alleged), possession and even the occasional witch–finder. The allure witches and the epidemic trials have held for historians has not been unrewarding; evolution of elite and popular beliefs, perceptions of gender, legal practices, religious conflict, medicine, literature, theatre, politics (communal, local and national), insight into these issues and a whole host more can be provided through analysis of witchcraft, magic and their context. Yet, underneath the exceptional trials was a continuous undercurrent of belief and accusation, which given study provides an even more revealing window into the early modern community's relationship with the magical.

Les devins ont joué un rôle indispensable dans le diagnostique et la guérison de maladies d’origine diabolique dans les communautés anglaises des débuts de la modernité. Malgré les tentatives du clergé de les faire passer pour les agents du Diable, leur popularité est restée intacte. Les solutions proposées par l’église Protestante — la prière, le jeune et la piété — se sont avérés impuissantes face à la multitude d’afflictions étranges et déconcertantes infestant la campagne anglaise. Bien que les diagnostiques de ces personnes rusées ont parfois conduit à des accusations de sorcellerie, leur pratique s’est souvent avérée préférable aux traitements invasifs et radicaux appliqués par les médecins gradués de l’université. La croyance populaire dans la capacité magique de guérison des devins était en partie favorisée par leur soutien par les élites. L’examen détaillé de la maladie soudaine et de la mort en 1594 de Ferdinando Stanley, cinquième comte de Derby, montre que l’emploi de ces intervenants n’était pas une pratique limitée aux pauvres et aux ignorants, et explore la nature des relations entre la médecine contrôlée par l’université et ce type de pratique.

This article compares and contrasts England’s first three Witchcraft Acts (1542, 1563, and 1604) with demonological treatises published by English theologians and clerics between 1580 and 1627 with the intention of highlighting the different ways both types of texts defined witches and their actions. This research focuses on cunning folk as healers to emphasize the disparity of interests and aims that underpinned the representation of witchcraft in civil law and religious treatises concerning that issue. I suggest that during Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, discussions about the definition of witchcraft became one of the battlefields where those who thought the English Reformation had achieved its ends and those who propelled a more thorough disciplining of the population to create a godly society collided. I argue that demonological works served, among other purposes, to express grievances about the official religious policy

This article is about the distinct groups that practised malevolent and benevolent witchcraft in Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia in late-modern Finland according to belief legends and memorates. Placing belief legends and memorates in Mary Douglas’ tripartite classification of powers that regulate fortune and misfortune illuminates the social structure of agents who posed a threat or regulated it by means of their supranormal powers. Powers that bring misfortune dwell outside
or within the community, whereas powers that bring fortune live within it but nevertheless may be ambivalent and pose a threat to its members as well. Threat towards the community was based on the concept of limited good, in other words the belief that there was a finite amount of prosperity in the world. The aim is to paint a detailed picture of the complex social structure and approaches to witchcraft in late-modern Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia.

This publication stems from the Medieval and Early Modern Student Association (MEMSA) community at Durham University, and the conference papers behind these articles were originally presented at the eighth annual MEMSA Student Conference, held in Durham Castle’s Senate Suite, 8–10 July 2014.

CONTENTS

– Natalie Goodison and Alexander J. Wilson, 'Outsiders and Otherness', 7–14
– Koren Kuntz, 'Ekphrasis, Cognition and Multimodality in Le Roman de Rose', 15–44
– Amy Morgan, 'Fairies, Monsters and the Queer Otherworld: Otherness in Sir Orfeo', 45–66
– Colin Davey, '"Noyse" Threshold: Gender, (Dis)courtesy and the Intrusion of the Other in Le Morte Darthur', 67–86
– Kathleen Reynolds, 'Unperceived Hands: The Role of the Female Assistant in Early Vernacular Gynaecological Literature', 87–111
– Gudrun Tockner, '"Shee is Cunning in All Things": Cunning Women and the Danger of Witchcraft on the Early Modern Stage', 113–135

Ez a tanulmány a kora újkori Nagybánya mágikus és egészségügyi piacának bemutatására tesz kísérletet, ahogyan az a boszorkányvádaskodás narratív kontextusában megismerhető. Elemzésemben három, viszonylag jó forrásadottságú időszak alapján térképezem fel a városban és környékén praktizáló népi mágikus szakértőket, egymással és klientúrájukkal kiépített kapcsolataikat. Amikor megpróbálok képet adni e piacnak azon szeletéről, amely a boszorkányság dokumentumaiból ismerhető meg, többek között a következő kérdésekre keresem a választ: 1.) milyen szolgáltatásokat kínáltak az egyes specialisták és milyen elvárásokkal jelentkeztek a kliensek; 2.) hogyan jött létre a kereslet és a kínálat találkozása, vagyis milyen szabályai éltek a gyógyító vagy specialista megbízásának a helyi szokásjogban; és milyen módon fizettek a szolgáltatásokért? 3.) hogyan szabályozták vagy szankcionálták a nem kielégítő szolgáltatást (kezelést), vagyis mit tett a beteg, ha elégedetlen volt és miként reagált erre a gyógyító, vagy a specialista? 4.) milyen más szférái léteztek még a nagybányai egészségügynek a helyi borbélyokon kívül, volt-e városi orvos, sebészorvos, vagy más tanult orvosi személyzet? Végezetül, mintegy visszakanyarodva a kiindulóponthoz, a boszorkányvádak és a nagybányai mágikus és egészségügyi piac néhány kölcsönhatására térek ki. Miként formálták a vádak ezt a közeget, egészen pontosan: milyen módon érzékelhetők ezek a hatások és a piac átalakulása a nagybányai boszorkányüldözés vizsgálatunkban szereplő dokumentumai alapján? / The present study attempts to describe the magical and medical market of early modern Nagybánya (Baia Mare; a miners’ town in North-East Hungary, present-day Romania) as it appears in the narrative context of the witchcraft accusations. In my analysis, based on three periods of time with relatively good source material, I mapped the popular magical specialist operating in the city and its surroundings, and their relations with each other and their clientele. At this point, my goal could not have been to make an extensive comparative analysis of the set of beliefs related to the figures and activities of the popular magical specialists; nonetheless, I also discuss certain cases of these beliefs and their particular local forms of appearances. I placed the specialist of popular magic within the society of Nagybánya at the time with the consideration of the limits of my sources, as far as the camera obscura of the trial documents allowed insight into it. In my investigations I do not discuss the history of witch-hunt in Nagybánya in detail; but I point out the momentums that played a role in the development of witchcraft accusations linked to certain magical specialists. I interpret the individuals who practice magical and/or healing activities in early modern Nagybánya and its surroundings, and their clientele, as components of the local market of magical services. For trying to paint a picture of the particular segment of the market known from the witchcraft documents, I am looking for an answer to the following questions: 1.) what services did the different specialists offer and what expectations did the clients have; 2.) how did the supply meet the demand, namely, what were the rules in the local custom law concerning the commissioning of a healer or a specialist? 3.) how did they regulate or sanction unsatisfactory services (treatment); namely, what did the patient do if he/she was discontent, and how did the healer or specialist react to it? 4.) what other spheres did the healthcare in Nagybánya have besides the local barbers; was there a town physician, an urban surgeon or other trained medical staff? Finally, somewhat returning to our starting point, I am discussing some of the interactions between the witchcraft accusations and the magical and medical market in Nagybánya. How did the accusations form this milieu, more precisely: how do these effects and the transformation of the market manifest in the documents of our witch-hunt investigation in Nagybánya?

A tanulmányban bemutatott zselici öntőasszony-dinasztia szövegeit több kutató gyűjtötte és közölte az 1950-es évektől. Ez a kutatás amellett érvel, hogy az asszonyok által a viaszöntés során elmondott imádság és a dinasztia sorsa szorosan összefonódott. Az egyes nemzedékekhez tartozó öntőasszonyok bemutatása után a jósláshoz szükséges tudomány megszerzéséről szóló elbeszélések motívumainak és az öntőimádságnak a viszonya kerül az elemzés középpontjába. Bár a hosszú időn át megőrzött imádság szövege fennmaradt, a hozzá kapcsolt hiedelmekből és a vele összefüggésben létrejött narratív hagyományból vizsgálata alapján kiderül, hogy az eredeti kontextusban fokozatosan irrelevánssá vált. A továbbéléshez nélkülözhetetlen intimitás ugyanis megszűnt, valamint az átörökítés közegében is számos kedvezőtlen változás zajlott le. / The narratives of the dynasty of healers from the Zselic region  have been collected and published by several ethnographers  since the 1950s. The paper argues that the prayers recited by the women during the healing session and the fate of the dynasty are closely intertwined. After presenting the history of the generation of healers, the analysis focuses on the relationship between the narrative motifs of acquiring magical knowledge. Although the text of the long-preserved prayer has survived, the close examination of the beliefs attached to it and the narrative tradition it generated reveals that it has gradually become irrelevant in its original context. The intimacy that was essential to its survival was lost, and the medium of transmission underwent a number of adverse changes.

Contemporary research in the area referred to as Pagan Studies evidences a scholarly interest in paganism/s and witchcraft. Trends within Social Anthropology and ethnographic studies have driven a change in the orientation of Pagan Studies admitting reflexive accounts by researchers who admit ‘insider’ status. This is an auto-ethnographic report of participant observation of rural pagans in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean conducted over a six-year fieldwork study. It refers to, and updates, related twentieth century ethnographic studies such as those of Jeanne Favret-Saada, Tanya Luhrmann and Susan Greenwood. Common themes in the literature of Pagan Studies, such as ritual, the Otherworld, continuity of practice, identity, folklore and the environment are assessed in respect to the pagan community studied.

This thesis focuses on the cunning-folk tradition, which figures prominently in the fieldwork area. Cunning-folk appear to have had little academic attention, with the exception of a recent study by Owen Davies.  This thesis builds upon Davies’ material and cites folklore records from local archives to present evidence of a local tradition of so-called cunning-folk in the fieldwork area. It reports the self-conscious relationship with this tradition of the contemporary local practitioners who constitute the researcher’s home community.

The region of the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean is rich with references to nature and Pagan deities. For the witches and pagans who live here, the woodlands and valleys are redolent of the ‘otherworld’, the ‘greenwood’ and related phenomena such as faeries, elementals and deities. Beyond these geographical associations, pagans of this region are observed to further validate their practices by identifying ancestral, familial and local attachments to cunning-folk of earlier generations to underpin a sense of belonging to a continuous tradition. This tradition claims Celtic foundations and draws upon a Wican tradition, in express distinction to Wiccan ritual practices. The nature of this—perhaps surprising—distinction is discussed and evaluated.

This article develops an interpretation of Iliad I.131-32, showing mainly by an analysis of the verses that precede this passage the reasons of Agamemnon’s reaction to Achilles’ action in the assembly. As a result, we will distinguish traces of cunning in Achilles' words.

The beautiful county of Yorkshire is the largest in Britain, and yet still possesses a strong and cohesive regional identity. Built on centuries of shared tradition, a characteristic body of folklore has thrived and endured well into the present day. Folklore of Yorkshire chronicles such beliefs throughout the whole county, identifying distinctive common themes, placing them in their historical context and considering their social and psychological function. You'll discover Yorkshire's holy wells and buried treasure, its boggarts, Black Dogs and fairies, and the legends behind the county's stunning landscape. This fully illustrated book shows how the customs of the past have influenced the ways of today, whilst also revealing something about the nature of folklore itself, both for the tradition-bearers and those who collect it.

In 1550 a cunning man named Jochum Bosch accused five women of witchcraft in the villages of Putten and  Nijkerkin the Dutch province of Gelderland. He was employed to do this by a Nijkerk who wished to attack another farmer's family. The women were set free by the Court of Gelderland and Bosch was banished.