Tabitha Stanmore’s Cunning Folk is an excellent history of the lives and practices of cunning folk – practical magicians and village wise women - in England from the late medieval (1300s) to early modern times (1650s), and a sympathetic portrait of the role of magic in the culture of the times. She draws from trial transcripts and a wide range of popular accounts of magical practitioners, including fictional portraits in plays and ballads. Not only is her scholarship very solid but she writes short personal portraits of the cunning folk and their clients, their circumstances and the times and culture in which they practiced, gives the context of England at the time, daily life, the day-to-day issues and struggles of people.
Her portrait is very empathetic and sometimes funny, as people from all parts of English culture from nobility to the villagers consulted cunning folk to solve problems in their lives. Real people dealing with much the same problems that we face in our lives, although with worse medicine and less social safety nets to fall back on.
Each chapter is organized around one aspect of the work of magicians: Finding thieves and lost goods, finding love, winning at trial, getting revenge, saving lives, getting rich quickly, gaining political power, telling the future, and stagecraft (magical performance for entertainment). In each chapter she begins with a story of a person seeking the aid of a magician, why they did so, their circumstances, who the cunning woman or man was, what it cost to employ their services, and then she discussed the legal complications and circumstances. A highly entertaining read as well – Stanmore writes very well and her focus on the human stories is very engaging. She treats the cunning folk as people, multifaceted individuals who provided valuable services to ordinary people.
And she does not dismiss the magical services as outdated superstition but makes it clear how much these services have continued to the present, and how much we witches and astrologers and energy workers are the cunning people of our day. Cunning Folk is a valuable contribution to the fields of folklore, magic studies, and the social history of England and a very good addition to my library.
~ review by Samuel Wagar
Author: Tabitha Stanmore
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024
255 pg. Hardbound £23 / $40 Can / $30 US
