CUNNING FOLK

Scholars such as Owen Davies andEmma Wilbyhave distinguished between beneficent “cunning folk” and maleficent “witches” in early modern Britain. While cunning folk might offerhealing, help find lost objects,divinethe future, and establish the whereabouts of criminals, witches causedillness, infertile crops, and even death. Cunning folk often had “familiarspirits” as allies in their work and madejourneysto the spirit world, elf home, or land of the fairies, while witches consorted with devils and made nocturnal travels to the Sabbath. Much of this nomenclature is tied up with the discourse of the witch trials, but the distinction between cunning folk and witches is demonstrable if markedly permeable. In her detailed examination of encounter-narratives between cunning folk and familiars/ witches and their devils, Wilby argues convincingly, if perhaps overstating the case, that “coherent and vigorous ‘shamanisticvisionarytraditions’ existed in many parts of Great Britain during the early modern period.”