Cunning Folk: Life In The Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore

I would like to thank The Bodley Head for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – The Bodley head

Published – Out Now

Price – £20 hardback £10.99 Kindle eBook

It’s 1600 and you’ve lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they’ve been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you’re facing trial. Maybe you’re looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do?

In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might have been cunning folk: practitioners of ‘service magic’. Neither feared (like witches), nor venerated (like saints), these people were essential: a ubiquitous presence at a time when the supernatural was surprisingly mundane and a cherished everyday resource.

We meet lovelorn widows, selfless healers and renegade monks; we listen in on Queen Elizabeth I’s astrology readings and track treasure hunters who try to keep peace with fairies. Much like us, premodern people lived in bewildering times, buffeted by forces beyond their control – and their faith in magic has much to teach us about how we accommodate ourselves to the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today.

Charming in every sense of the word, Cunning Folk is an immersive reconstruction of a bygone world and a thought-provoking commentary on the beauty and bafflement of being human.

With history its easy to think of inventions, fashions, buildings and of course who runs a country. We can see this leads to a to b and then eventually to what we see around us. Its sometimes harder to get our heads around what was in people’s heads. It can be quite surprising and in some ways challenge what we see now. In Tabitha Stanmore’s intelligent and fascinating Cunning Folk – Life In the Era of Practical Magic we get to see how the concept of magic, the supernatural and how they viewed those who practised it the ones known as the Cunning Folk.

In the medieval period sometimes you had a problem that needed specialist help, but the question is who are you gonna call? When you want to be in a relationship, out of one, rich, powerful, or healthy in this period you would often find in this time someone with a reputation for knowing the secret ways to do this. They’re not witches or warlocks as we tend to think - they’re more local businesses with a reputation that attracted the needy. Some get acclaim for it but others got into trouble. Stanmore walks us through the range of such experts nicknamed the cunning folk that also challenges how people viewed such people far more complicatedly than we expect.

Usually when we think of those offering some form of witchcraft in the past our heads jump to images of stakes, ducking stools and various folk horror stories but Stanmore finds that the medieval period prior to the really tight restrictions (and even then) had a much looser relationship with using such people even when the Church is a major power and a key part of daily life. Ina time of no NHS, huge child mortality, very strict views on the rights women could have and you get a sense that when the pressure is on, we would seek out someone who is known to solve these unusual types of problems.

Looking through court records, commentaries and histories Stanmore paints the picture of the beliefs found in the UK and across Europe al the way to Russia. Yes, you would seek a person to find your lost cutlery as they’re probably the most expensive item in your home. If you can’t find love you may not own property or have any wealth; in you’re an abusive relationship sowing your partner is impotent is more likely to help you leave and get a life than simply walking out and in a time of 50% child mortality who wouldn’t do all they can to save a child? Stanmore is less interested in discussing the likely lack of science in these things – a load filled with knives can name the guilty but the more fascinating aspect for me is the way Stanmore explains why people needed this. That they were prepared to pay considerable sums of money for it and what would happen to people if they couldn’t do so.

It not just working-class folk who do this we get tales of Bishops using warriors with enchantments to settle land disputes and various members of the nobility seeking out a way to stay in favour or gain their own power. The consequences of lost were expensive and in some cases likely to end up in prison or dead yet people did this for hundreds of years. The achievement of the book is understanding the mindset of the people offering and taking the services. Reputations were gained and lost with people choosing their practitioner well. In a strange time where Doctors used Unicorn Horn as a standard cure there may have been method in why some wise women were preferred to help those with illness. Each chapter walks through one theme and gives several successful and unsuccessful examples, but the key is this was very normal. People accepted magic, astrology and the idea of the gods and demons who may powered it. Disturbing tales such as a master baker who tried to pull his insides out to tales of children being saved and wives getting free from their horrible husbands. Its tempting to think well clearly these people are primitive but we still seek magic in astrology, tarot, gurus, and a whole sea of wellness tips online covering eternal youth to making yourself rich quick. Have we really evolved or just got better terms to describe people.

As a reviewer of fantasy novels, the idea of the person that a hero sought for magic is often seen as something special even for this time, but this is a reminder that actually many didn’t blink an eye at magic or consulting someone for a spell, charm or remedy. The understanding of the mindset mindset of people of this time as to why this was the case is what comes to life for me and this is a book I can heartily recommend for a different look at how the world used to be and very probably still is. Highly recommended!