Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic

Opens a fascinating new window onto medieval and early modern life - a world where it's possible to meet the devil on the road, control the future through stars, and employ a fairy to help find gold In Cunning Folk- Life in the Era of Practical Magic, historian Tabitha Stanmore will transport readers to a time when magic was used day-to-day as a way to navigate life's challenges and to solve problems of both trivial and deadly importance. Imagine- it's 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons - or perhaps your neighbour has stolen them. Or maybe your child has a fever. Or you're facing trial. Or you're looking for love. Or you're hoping to escape a husband ... What do you do? In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might very well have been cunning folk- practitioners of 'service magic'. Neither feared (like witches), nor venerated (like saints), they were essential to everyday life, a ubiquitous presence in a time when the supernatural was surprisingly mundane. For people from all walks of life, practical magic was a cherished resource with which to navigate life's many challenges. In Tabitha Stanmore's beguiling account, we meet lovelorn widows and dissolute nobles, selfless healers and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I's astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in bewildering times, buffeted by forces beyond their control; and as Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach us about how we accommodate ourselves to the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today. Told with warmth, wit and above all, empathy, these stories take us deep into people's day-to-day lives- their hopes and desires, their fears and vulnerabilities. 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.

About the Author :
Tabitha Stanmore is a social historian of magic and witchcraft at the University of Exeter. She is part of the Leverhulme-funded Seven County Witch-Hunt Project, and her doctoral thesis was published as Love Spells and Lost Treasure- Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period. She has featured on Radio 3's Free Thinking and BBC 4's Plague Fiction, and her writing has been published in the Conversation.

Review :
This is a brilliant book, written with wit and vigour, in which Tabitha Stanmore explores the pre-modern places where magic was real, offering not only practical solutions for ordinary problems but a way of feeling about the world, an emotional relationship between anxious humans, cosmic forces, and the mundane mysteries of their lives Absolutely fascinating. Cunning Folk is a much-needed book that draws attention to a little-known but important aspect of daily life. Like all good history books, it tells us about ourselves as well as the past. It will both inform and inspire readers Eye-opening ... [Cunning Folk] gives a human face to magic in medieval and early modern England, bringing us closer than ever to the hopes, dreams and aspirations of both clients and practitioners Tabitha Stanmore’s engaging new social history of magic . . . full of such magical tips and colourful vignettes . . . She’s clearly a sharp reader of social realities, and sometimes offers clear-eyed social assessments of why magical rituals had real-world consequences . . . the result is this cheerful, colourful compendium of stories, which crackles with incident Illuminating… Cunning Folk shows us that our forebears were seeking answers through the tools they had Spirited and richly detailed … With hundreds of colourful incidents drawn from legal records, court chronicles and contemporary accounts, Stanmore hopscotches through history, exploring the uses to which cunning folk were put This is a fascinating book, clearly written and illuminating about the psychological necessity of magical thought A fascinating and intricately researched book that opens a window into another world The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written ... Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read This isn't just a book: it's a window on the hopes, passions and lives of Europe five centuries ago. We know the horror film version of magic. Tabitha Stanmore - uncovering a whole treasure house of long-lost private lives - adds the rich, fresh, human version