Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic

Cunning Folk examines the practical magic used across medieval and early modern Europe, where cunning folk offered help with problems ranging from lost property to illness. Tabitha Stanmore presents these practitioners as working figures within everyday society, providing paid magical services to people seeking solutions when ordinary means seemed insufficient. The book considers accounts of spells for finding thieves and goods, securing love, winning legal cases and taking revenge.

Its scope also extends to healing, gaining wealth, influencing rulers and kingdoms, and telling the future. Alongside these reported uses, Stanmore investigates magic as performance, showing how staged displays formed part of the period’s wider magical culture. The result is a social history of practical spellcraft and its place in premodern life.