Cunning Folk
Before microscopes and stethoscopes, before hospitals and modern medicine, there were the cunning-folk, who practiced a kind of magic woven into the fabric of daily life: practical, personal, and deeply rooted in community belief. A missing object, a run of bad luck, or an unrequited love were their concerns. This episode brings you the story of the wise men and women who worked in whispers and who bridged belief and need: the cunning-folk of Britain.
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.
Cover image: “A model of a 19th-century cunning woman in her house, at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, England.” Photo by Midnightblueowl at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Music
Purple Planet - Valley of Eden
Purple Planet - Deadlock
Purple Planet - Last Stand
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Sonata no. 11, K. 331 - III. Alla Turca - performed by Eduardo
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
1541-2: 33 Henry 8 c.8: The Bill against conjurations and wichecraftes and sorcery and enchantments. The Statutes Project.
1563: 5 Elizabeth 1 c.16: An Act agaynst Conjuracions Inchantmentes and Witchecraftes. The Statutes Project.
1604: 1 James 1 c.12: An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits. The Statutes Project.
1735: 9 George 2 c.5: The Witchcraft Act. The Statutes Project.
James I. Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogie Diuided into three Bookes. Printed by Robert Walde-graue, 1597.
Keats, John. “Meg Merrilies.” 1818.
Norfolk Chronicle. Saturday 8 January 1791. British Newspaper Archive.
Norfolk Chronicle. Saturday 12 August 1797. British Newspaper Archive.
Withering, William. An Account of the Foxglove, and Some of Its Medical Uses. Birmingham: M. Swinney, 1785.
Secondary
Davies, Owen. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. London: Hambledon and London, 2003.
Hutton, Ronald. “Witches and Cunning Folk in British Literature 1800–1940.” Preternature 7, no. 1 (2018): 27-49.
Stanmore, Tabitha. Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.
Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005.
