Continued
Celts, Druids, and Romans.
To recap, the Celts came to Britain around 600 BC and found a pre-existing tribal culture flourishing. This culture had a well-established philosophy and body of astronomical knowledge, building impressive structures with just stone tools. The most well-known is, of course, Stonehenge built around 3000 BC and pre-dating the pyramids in Egypt. We know that this culture had a well-established Cult of the Dead and practiced funereal cremations and burial chambers dug well below ground. They worshipped the Changing Seasons and the Equinox, calculated by their “computer” Stonehenge. Stonehenge itself, was not an isolated structure but was just part of a living community now estimated to be around 10000 people.
Into this came the Celts with a similar social structure and common ancestry from the “drowned lands” of the North Sea. These two cultures apparently merged without great difficulty. The Celts were metal workers, covering the transition between the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The cultural mix spread throughout Britain with the Pictii to the north still and Britain became a tribal land with Chieftains, warriors, farmers, metal workers, and , not least the tribal shaman.
Into this mix, as if by magic, comes a new factor – the Druids. There is little evidence concerning the druids and, what there is, is of Roman origin and can only be described as highly subjective and, lets just say it, biased.
The earliest reference is 3rd century BC by a Greek writer Sotion of Alexandria which is cited by Diogenes in the 2nd century BC. The reference is to druidae.
The English Druid derives from Latin Druides. Both Latin and Greek words are “on loan” from a proto-celtic stem Druwid which combines the roots deru and weid.
Deru is oak in Indo-European but has other meanings such as “to be firm, solid, steadfast” i.e. the English “true”.
Weid- is the Indo-European root for “to see” , also meaning knowledge, as in the English wit, or Sanscrit veda.
Also derived from this is drui [Welsh – seer ; draoi [Irish – magician] : druidh [Modern gaelic – enchanter] and draoidh [ magician]
So, Druwid could be translated as True Knowledge.
The Druids philosophy is called Pythagorean by the historian Cornelius Polyhistor
“the souls of men are immortal and after death will enter another body.”
They taught lessons on Astronomy, geography, natural philosophy and matters relating to religion. In battle, it was common to see druids standing between opposing armies attempting to bring about peaceful solutions [ Julius Caesar – De Bello Gallico]
In the record of Cymry Gwyddoniad [Welsh Cunning Folk], it is said that the Druids had no knowledge of Celtic Mysteries and Spirituality and were taught by the Celtic Cunning Folk. So, the Druids became culturally Celtic.
Here’s the stunning bit – one modern scholar [ Donald A. Mackenzie in Buddhism in pre-Christian Britain] has speculated that Buddhist missionaries had been sent by the Indian king Ashoka. A very intriguing speculation. Druids = Buddhists ?
The Druids used a tradition that was purely oral and became Advisors, counsellors, judges, and High Priests to the Celts and, thus, aroused the enmity of the invading Romans who instituted a pogram. It came to a head with many druids forced back into Mona {Anglesey] and butchered – but were they ?
In the Gwyddoniad record , it is said that many escaped to Eire to carry on the Druidic Celtic tradition there.
So, first century AD, most of Britain is under Roman rule. The Celts in Northumbria [the Brigantes] allied themselves peacefully to the Romans and became the first of the Romano-Britons. The Romans, in general, were very cunning in relation to religious practices – they absorbed them into their own pantheons – and so it was with the Celtic pagan beliefs. The shaman just ignored the change and took what they wanted from Roman culture – a feature of the Cunning Folk which continues.
To recap, we left Britain now a Roman province. Most High Ranking Celts adopted Roman life styles, becoming Romano-Britons. There were some tribes that tried to fight this Romanisation, notably the Iceni, but eventually everything settled. Roads were built North to South, and East to West, and garrisons established. What was unique about Britain was the building of boundary walls such as Hadrians Wall in Northumbria which defined the extent of Romano-Britain.
The Cunning Folk took on board some Roman deities and some Romans – soldiers especially – made offerings to local spirits and deities. An example which is typical is the Celtic site at what is now called Bath. There was a hot spring there dedicated to the spirit Sulis. The Romans built a formal bath house [hence the name Bath] and dedicated it to Sulis-Minerva. The Cunning Folk now had access to the works of Greek and Roman philosophers and people of science and medicine. In general, it was a time of peace and relative prosperity because of the import of Roman agricultural know-how and civil engineering. Pax Romana spread over Britain.
At one time, the whole Roman Empire was ruled from Britain when the local commander who had three legions marched from Eboracum [York] to Rome and took the Imperial Purple. In truth, the “Roman” army had few Romans in it outside of the officer corp. They were mostly drawn from all over the empire and built settlements in Britain after they were permitted to marry local women in the 2nd century AD. All Britons were granted Roman citizenship
In the fourth century AD, a plea was sent to Rome for help to ward off the invasion of a Germanic tribe, the Saxons. The answer returned was basically , “you’re on your own.” That was the end of Roman rule in Britain . Most of the soldiers remained here as they were settled and came under local commanders. We were now all Britons.
The Saxons were originally invited to Britain as mercenaries. They were pagan and their social tribal structures were not a mile away from the original Celts and later Norse. So, their “Cunning Folk” were shamanistic, their religion animist. In nature, they were more barbaric than the Romano-Britons but only in degree. Many Saxon words survived in what was to become Anglo-Saxon, the predominant language of these isles. For example, a Saxon goddess Eostre became the pagan festival Ostara and the Christian festival of Easter. So, there was little culture shock in their coming.
The real shock between the Britons and the Saxons was over land, the Saxons had come to settle. In terms of magic and witchcraft, the Saxons added little in High Magic – no equivalent of the druidic tradition.
Oddly, out of this period comes one of the most famous Britons, Arthur. Not a king with knights in shining armour and Camelot and Excalibur but the real Arthur – a Romano-British General who fought first the Pictii and then the Saxons in the 5th century. Arturios – Dux Bellorum
In the 6th century, Britain became Christian on the surface but, in the rural areas it remained pagan and the Cunning Folk still did what they had always done. Some became Christian and took what they wanted from the new religion.
In the ninth century, the Norse incursions began. First as raiders but then as settlers. The North reverted to paganism again and a new Norse kingdom was formed in the North called Bernicia, ruled by Danish Norsemen who took Eboracum as their capital, renamed Jorvik [c/f York !]
Eventually, Christianity returned and the whole of Britain became nominally Christian – now a mix of Romano-Britons, Saxons, and Norse. It is worth noting that Christianity was brought to Britain by Irish monks of the Celtic Church. They founded the monastery of Lindisfarne, off the Northumbrian coast and it was there that the Lindisfarne Gospels were written in Anglo-Saxon. The Celtic Church was a rather mystical form of Christianity with animist tendencies and an almost pagan flavour in their worship.
And all through it, the native Cunning Folk continued to do what they had always done.
I will now jump several centuries to the time covered by academic research. Namely the work of Owen Davies, lecturer in History, University of Herefordshire, and Ronald Hutton, Professor of History, University of Bristol.
A précis.
Cunning-folk, who were also known as wise-women, wise-men, conjurors and wizards, were an integral part of English society right up until the early twentieth century. Over the centuries hundreds of thousands of people must have consulted them regarding a wide range of problems, but particularly those concerning affairs of the heart, theft, sickness and most important of all witchcraft. They were multi-skilled, or at least professed to be so. They practised herbalism, treasure-seeking and love magic. They revealed the identity of thieves and divined the whereabouts of lost and stolen property. The more learned cunning-folk also practised astrology, while the less learned pretended to be masters of the art. The most lucrative aspect of their business was the curing of those people and animals who were thought to be bewitched, and also the trade in charms to ward of witches and evil spirits.
The magical activities of cunning-folk were effectively made illegal under the Conjuration and Witchcraft Acts of 1542, 1563 and 1604 - the same laws which were used to prosecute suspected witches. In particular these Acts were directed at any person or persons who took
"upon him or them by witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, to tell or declare in what place any treasure of gold or silver should or might be found or had in the earth, or other secret place; or where goods, or things lost or stolen should be found or be come; or shall use or practise any sorcery, enchantment, charm or witchcraft to the intent to provoke any person to unlawful love"
Under the 1542 Act the punishment for such offences was death, though there are no records suggesting that the sentence was ever carried out, and besides, the Act was repealed a few years later in 1547. The Elizabethan Act of 1563 prescribed one year's imprisonment and four stints in the pillory for a first offence, life imprisonment for a second offence, and death for those who conjured up evil spirits.
Long before these laws were passed the religious and ecclesiastical authorities had expressed their concern about the activities of cunning-folk, and a number were prosecuted for fraud by the London authorities, and for moral offences by church courts up and down the country. In fact, up until the mid-sixteenth century there was far greater concern over the threat cunning-folk posed to society than there was over the activities of harmful witches. Even during the main period of the witch trials members of authority, clergymen in particular, urged that cunning-folk should also be rooted out and exterminated. Very few shared such a fate, however, for the simple reason that, on the whole, the common people saw them as valuable members of the community. In the rare instances when cunning-folk were sentenced to death under the conjuration and witchcraft statutes it was because they were accused and found guilty of harmful witchcraft, rather than for their beneficial magical practices such as theft detection or for conjuring spirits. Even when witchcraft and conjuration ceased to be a crime, following the Witchcraft Act of 1736, the same law ensured that pretended witchcraft or magic remained a punishable offence. So from 1736 onwards cunning-folk could no longer be prosecuted for what they said they could do, but for what they could not do. In other words witchcraft and magic became legally defined as fraudulent beliefs and practices.
Authoritarian concern over the popularity of cunning-folk continued into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though it was no longer based on a fear of Satan, but on the 'credulity' and 'ignorance' that cunning-folk were said to promote through their magical activities. As a result, sporadic prosecution of cunning-folk continued, though usually under the rather inappropriate laws against vagrancy (particularly after the Vagrancy Act of 1824) rather than the more appropriate Witchcraft Act.
By this time, the Cunning Folk had lost their pagan religious roots and often adopted Christianity as a cover, using the bible as a source of spells rather than it’s original intent. Even some clergy used magic and provided Cunning Folk services.
One consequence of this “hiding in plain sight” was that they avoided the excesses of the witch hunts and were often regarded as witch finders. There were many laws against the practice of witchcraft but the only prosecutions seem to be a result of customers claiming that the magic did not work.
The historical studies of Owen Davies have shown the extent to which cunning folk were a recognised part of British rural and urban life, and in the 19th century it is estimated there were several thousand at work across the country. They could be found operating openly in towns and villages across the nation and they were a valued part of the community. Some cunning folk were so successful that they began attracting clients from many miles away. Most offered more limited services to a smaller region. Cunning folk could make a good living from their talents, and there usually was a set monetary charge for their services. The money they earned meant they were often considered, especially by the better educated, as frauds and tricksters who got money out of the gullible for parlour tricks; certainly some were caught in fraud such as spying on customers to aid their predictions, repeatedly promising vast treasure which was never found, or accusing innocent people of theft or witchcraft. By the nineteenth century when the threat of prosecution was slight, cunning folk advertised their services and wrote books.
As late as the 17th century in England, magical beliefs were widespread in both learned and popular thought. Some of this popular magic was a hold-over from the 'Old Faith' — Catholicism: Catholic priests pronounced that benefits such as protection during travel, ease of childbirth, recovery of lost goods and protection from blindness could be gained by the repetition of Latin prayers, attending Mass, or even seeing the priest bearing the Host. Pre-Christian magical beliefs and practices also survived into the early modern period. Nature spirits and pagan deities were worshipped as saints; the cult of the dead preserved ancient traditions of ancestor worship, and the most sacred events of the Christian calendar overlaid pre-Christian festivals. Many festivals and community events preserved even more thinly veiled pagan practices. Although Catholicism had been very successful in absorbing pre-Christian magic, many people in Early Modern Britain still had essentially animist world views which owed little to Christianity. In many parts of England and Scotland parishes had no resident priest, and a significant proportion of commoners seldom attended church at all. Of those who attended church, many did so without interest or understanding, and were ignorant of rudimentary Christian doctrine. At the same time, these people held a complex body of magical beliefs, particularly relating to fairies, nature spirits and ghosts.
Popularly, little distinction was made between fairy, angel, saint, ghost or devil, however fairies were most consistently linked with the dead. Fairies were held to generally resemble humans and lead very similar lives, yet lived much longer, could become invisible or change shape, and could fly, heal the sick and divine future events. People were anxious to propitiate these beings, both from desire for good fortune and from fear. The aid of fairies was also enlisted, via magical practitioners, to help with major life problems, particularly to do with health, popular belief maintaining that fairies "cause and cure most diseases".
Common people regularly performed their own magic spells and rituals, but when greater experience was needed they turned to magical practitioners, who were known by the interchangeable terms wise man or woman, cunning man or woman, witch (white or black), wizard, sorcerer, conjurer, blesser, dreamer and so on. These practitioners mostly came from the less educated or wealthy sectors of the population, but a significant minority of them were literate and even possessed magical manuals. Like witches, cunning folk seem to have often employed the services of spirits and familiars in their work, and indeed it is difficult to clearly differentiate cunning folk from 'witches', a distinction that was often blurred in the early modern period. While some cunning folk were considered wholly good, many more were seen as ambivalent and regarded with a degree of fear.
In his work, The Triumph of the Moon, Ronald Hutton gives an in-depth study of the “hereditary craft”. It deals with people who practiced “witchcraft” before Gardner came along.
Were they called witches?
Hutton reviews the evidence for low magic, and examines three fairly distinct groups who practised magic and spells:
· cunning folk, literate middle class traders, artisans or schoolmasters
· charmers, often lower class magical practitioners
· witches, anti-social individuals practising evil magic for their own ends
These were the "practitioners of this operative magic in England and Wales between 1740 and 1940" They were astrologers, fortune tellers, wise women, wise men or wizards, cunning men and cunning women, conjurors, 'dyn hysbys' (Welsh) or 'pellar' (Cornish, believed to be from 'expeller', one who casts out evil spirits), but not 'witch'. "Folklore collectors themselves often employed the term 'white witch' [for cunning folk and charmers], but this formulation was very rare in the vocabulary of the ordinary people, to whom the word 'witch' almost always signified somebody who worked magic for personal ends of profit or malice." . These cunning people usually had some regular employment too.
The source of knowledge
"The outward sign of their accomplishment was that they possessed books, an immediate distinction..." These books were mainly works on astrology, herbalism, medicine, charms, ritual magic, astrological charts, sometimes the Key of Solomon. Writers like Cornelius Agrippa, Nostradamus, Reginald Scot, William Lilley, Francis Barrett. But: "Cunning folk wrote their own notebooks" , for example "a conjuring book with large brass clasps and corners, an elaborate book of charms and recitations". Some of these are preserved in national archives, such as the National Library of Wales. Cunning folk bought their books, often by mail order, from either Leeds or London. Charmers, to the contrary, often had their simple charms passed on by personal transmission, as to write charms down would dissipate their power.
Magical techniques
Charmers often confined themselves to curing growths or rashes of skin, promoting the healing of wounds, staunching bleeding - all ailments which are very responsive to mental suggestion, and often with a near total success rate.
Magical practitioners often used a mirror, crystal, vessel of water etc. for the client to gaze into, until they saw who had bewitched them, stolen their goods, spread gossip and so forth.
Cunning men used fire to burn a special powder or incense to purify houses, people, animals. The heart of an animal could be stuck with pins, burnt or roasted. Hair and nail clippings could be put in a bottle, boiled or buried. Wax effigies were used as well to get even with a witch who put a spell on a household. Apart from this, amulets, charms, healing potions and poultices, horoscopes, card reading and tea-leaf reading, trickery, ventriloquism and slight of hand were all used. "Above all, they devised spells and rites according to their own whims and creative talents, and the needs of their customers".
Lodges and covens
"Did cunning folk ever work together, or meet in lodges, guilds or covens? The answer seems to be an almost complete negative..." There are exceptions, such as husband and wife teams, or a gathering of wisemen in Manchester in the early nineteenth century. But cunning folk in general were competitors of each other, and their craft was a sideline to their regular employment.
There are plenty of references to witches, but they are the opponents of the cunning people: "individuals possessed of magical powers who chose to use them maliciously against their neighbours, from motives of revenge or entertainment". Folklore collectors on the other hand refer to cunning folk as 'white witches', confusing the issue and using a word which the people themselves never used.
A belief?
In general, the belief of cunning folk "did not reflect a single cosmology, but was made up of the debris of many" . So they believed pretty much what everyone else believed, and were mostly Christian, albeit with the addition of what we now would call 'superstition' . The charms and spells too had a clear Christian character - the Bible being used as a spell book more than a theological message. There is no record of a pagan belief system in existence at this time.
Hereditary craft?
Cunning folk's talents were individual, like a talent for music, or beauty. At most, talents like this lasted for one or two generations . Charmers, who used just one skill to heal one particular ailment, often did pass this on through the family or a close friend. Sometimes people were supposedly born with the gift. In the West Country a charm should be passed down between members of the opposite gender.
In witches it tended to run in families, but that may just be because a family had a bad name anyway. There was also the belief that the power must be passed on when the witch was close to death.
Rich and famous
- Charmers regarded their power as a gift, so usually accepted no payment, only gifts.
- Cunning folk usually charged a fixed fee - usually a low one for the poor, a high one for the gentry.
- In general these people were commercially successful and had a handsome income - note that they had regular employment as well - and could live comfortably.
Persecution?
The Witchcraft act of 1736 made it an offence to call somebody else a witch, and outlined penalties for people who claimed to work magic, up to 1 year imprisonment.. But for the rest of that century, the law remained a dead letter. In 1824 the Vagrancy act outlawed persons telling fortunes or using anything like palmistry to deceive and impose , and this law was enforced and did make life more difficult for cunning folk. The prosecutions rose with the installation of the professional county police forces in 1851, but they also helped to wipe out mobbing of suspected witches. Prosecution usually was the result of unhappy clients being charged exorbitant fees, but most cunning folk who charged normal fees had no problems. The decline in prosecutions around 1900 continued until both acts were repealed in 1951. So these laws never had any real impact: "ordinary people valued magic too much"
So, there we have it. The research points to practitioners of “operative magic” right up to 1940. The Cunning Folk were solitaries, they kept a form of a Book of Shadows, they had no underlying philosophy, and were generally immune from the law on the basis that “ordinary people valued magic too much.”
In the 1950’s the final Witchcraft Laws were repealed, Gardner introduced Wicca i.e neo-Witchcraft and the Cunning Folk vanished seamlessly from sight but probably regained their spiritual pagan roots.