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The Cunning-Folk of England
Nov. 17th, 2018 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerA while back, I read Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History by Owen Davies, and I've been mulling over how the author's contentions might fit into the Potterverse.
To (very, very) briefly summarize, Davies says that the cunning folk were distinct from other classes of magic workers (though there is always some overlap). For instance, he contrasts them with those who were solely fortune-tellers and with charmers, who depended entirely on using a magical artifact of some sort for their work. He defines the cunning folk as the more full-service magic workers: they could find lost objects, help you scry for your true love, perform love charms/potions, heal, and--this is one of the biggest services--protect you against malevolent witchcraft.
One of the really interesting points Davies makes is that whatever the church said, most of the common people were insistent that the cunning folk were not witches. He claims that according to the records he studied, cunning folk were rarely prosecuted for witchcraft, and their neighbors often defended them. He also hypothesizes that the final decline of the profession in the late 19th/early 20th centuries was due to people no longer believing in witchcraft as a cause of many problems (even if they did believe in other occult phenomena) and so no longer needing anti-witch services.
(Other points of interest: they charged for their work, but often had another profession; they were often of the artisan/trade classes rather than farmers and laborers; they were usually at least semi-literate and used this as a mark of distinction; cunning men outnumbered cunning women; though many were rural, some worked in cities too; they usually worked alone unless training their children in the business.)
Pre-Statute of Secrecy, of course, this is no problem. The father in "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" was probably the local cunning man, and he earned enough to allow his son to attend the full seven years at Hogwarts (whether or not they charged at the time, losing his son's labor for so long could be tough on the household). Said son then proved to be too high-and-mighty after his fancy education and needed to be taught a lesson about the value of work. Oh, and sure, do some good for the neighbors in the bargain.
But after? The idea of magic workers being paid for performing magic who are not witches, absolutely not, post-Statute of Secrecy, raises some interesting questions.( Read more... )
To (very, very) briefly summarize, Davies says that the cunning folk were distinct from other classes of magic workers (though there is always some overlap). For instance, he contrasts them with those who were solely fortune-tellers and with charmers, who depended entirely on using a magical artifact of some sort for their work. He defines the cunning folk as the more full-service magic workers: they could find lost objects, help you scry for your true love, perform love charms/potions, heal, and--this is one of the biggest services--protect you against malevolent witchcraft.
One of the really interesting points Davies makes is that whatever the church said, most of the common people were insistent that the cunning folk were not witches. He claims that according to the records he studied, cunning folk were rarely prosecuted for witchcraft, and their neighbors often defended them. He also hypothesizes that the final decline of the profession in the late 19th/early 20th centuries was due to people no longer believing in witchcraft as a cause of many problems (even if they did believe in other occult phenomena) and so no longer needing anti-witch services.
(Other points of interest: they charged for their work, but often had another profession; they were often of the artisan/trade classes rather than farmers and laborers; they were usually at least semi-literate and used this as a mark of distinction; cunning men outnumbered cunning women; though many were rural, some worked in cities too; they usually worked alone unless training their children in the business.)
Pre-Statute of Secrecy, of course, this is no problem. The father in "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" was probably the local cunning man, and he earned enough to allow his son to attend the full seven years at Hogwarts (whether or not they charged at the time, losing his son's labor for so long could be tough on the household). Said son then proved to be too high-and-mighty after his fancy education and needed to be taught a lesson about the value of work. Oh, and sure, do some good for the neighbors in the bargain.
But after? The idea of magic workers being paid for performing magic who are not witches, absolutely not, post-Statute of Secrecy, raises some interesting questions.( Read more... )
