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"Cunning folk are frequently confused with witches. The key difference between the two is that cunning folk were real, whereas there is no evidence that witches existed outside the imagination of those who believed they had been afflicted by them" Um, no?
That's nice and all, but England was Protestant for all of the period in which good information on cunning men/women is available. But Protestantism barely shows up in the article. Bacchiad 08:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This article seems to concentrate a bit too much on insisting witches didn't actually exist than it ought to, at the expense of citing more than one source for its main body of material. To differentiate is fine, but to say that there were absolutely no witches is unprovable. As with other legendary or semi-legendary phenomena, we simply can't know with certainty. I will be redoing the language accordingly in future. -- Fire Star 04:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any evidence of a neutrality dispute, so I'm removing the tag. Tom Harrison Talk 00:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Semantics, I find it hilarious that Witches are said to not exist because people were smart enough not to call themselves something that might get them killed. People are really quite lacking in common sense these days. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.211.159.153 ( talk • contribs)
_________
What I found troubling was this:
"Whether Cunning folk actually did possess any supernatural power is open to debate."
Naturally, supposing that anyone could actually have supernatural power leaves scientific scholarship and moves toward wiccan propganda.
Personally, I think it is fair enough to make clear that the article is written from a neutral point of view, and not one blinkered by the scientistic cult. (And that's nothing against science, the best scientists do not subscribe to the cult; just as [[Isaac Newton]] for all his faults was at least free of "Newton's sleep", William Blake's name for the cult which he unfairly pinned on old Isaac. I'm dropping names just to signal that there is an argument to be had here.) Jeremy ( talk) 01:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Triumph of the Moon (TOTM) has a good roundup of British cunning folk in the 18th and 19th centuries. Including the "last" traditional wise woman said to have dies in the 1930s and to have been in many ways the very stereotype of a witch. She surely deserves a mention by name. TOTM mentions the wise woman in Under the Greenwood Tree but doesn't mention the Cunning Man in Tom Brown's School Days; these figures from realistic fiction probably also should be included.
As sources I would suggest Emma Wilby's "Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits", Alan Macfarlane's "Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England", and of course Owen Davies' "Cunning Folk: Popular Magic in English History". Emma Wilby's work in particular establishes a better context and explanation for the strange practices and beliefs of these individuals. Fuzzypeg ★ 20:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Exciting! I've started adding details from Wilby's excellent book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. I've only added a little bit so far (probably enough already to stir up some controversy though!), but it's 2:30am now and I need some sleep. I'll probably try to add some more before I get stuck into rearranging and careful rationalisation of the sections. The info is roughly in the right place so far, and once we have a bit more we'll be able to see better what we've got to work with. If anyone has complimentary (or contrasting) sources and wants to add in another perspective, that would be great! I don't have Davies, Thomas or Macfarlane in front of me so I'm pretty much a one-book man at the moment. All the best, and good night! Fuzzypeg ★ 14:43, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I just deleted the no references tag, as it is no longer true. Referencing could be improved of course.... Jeremy ( talk) 01:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
"The term white witch was infrequently used for cunning folk until recent times, except in the county of Devon."
Why not in Devon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.171.206.112 ( talk) 20:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
This article needs expanding to cover more than just the British Isles. As it is this article implies that "cunning folk" are only found in Britain, or that they are an originally, or mostly British phenomenon or that all the traditions of them whether English, Welsh, Scots et cetera all derive from the same (sub-)tradition rather than being part of a greater European tradition (and arguably beyond). I shall be expanding this article soon so that it is less UK-centric and covers the tradition(s) as a whole rather than presenting a biased and incorrect version of history (as is too often the case). Sigurd Dragon Slayer ( talk) 10:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Or this could be a page linked to from the larger Cunning folk page? Sigurd Dragon Slayer ( talk) 10:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Hello all. I've recently been revamping and adding to this page, based upon the works of Ronald Hutton, Owen Davies and Emma Wilby (I hope that you like the improvements), but am a bit stumped when it comes to discussing the legality and nature of the cunning craft in Scotland during the Early Modern period, when it was of course a political and national entity independent from England and Wales. Does anyone who specialises in Scottish magic know of any good academic sources that discuss this? Many thanks ( Midnightblueowl ( talk) 14:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC))
I'm portuguese and never heard this term. I´ve heard "mulher astuta"- cunning woman, "mulher de virtude" - woman of virtue and "curandeiro" - healer. What is the source for the term "saludadores"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.214.155.209 ( talk) 23:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
The search sugests a mistake by Davies, as this word appears to be spanish. "Saludadores" deriving from "salud" - health in spanish. On the outher hand, the term "curanderos", though it exists in spanish, is very similar to the portuguese "curandeiros". Perhaps the two words got mixed up. I can't find "saludadores" in the diccionary either. Don't think it is an ancient term, the root of the word is "salud" and the portuguese equivalent is "saúde". Now I know that if such a mistake was done by Davies, there is litle you can do about it; the quote is correct, it is the source that is incorrect. It's one of the problems with wikipedia... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.140.33.187 ( talk) 01:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
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"Cunning folk are frequently confused with witches. The key difference between the two is that cunning folk were real, whereas there is no evidence that witches existed outside the imagination of those who believed they had been afflicted by them" Um, no?
That's nice and all, but England was Protestant for all of the period in which good information on cunning men/women is available. But Protestantism barely shows up in the article. Bacchiad 08:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This article seems to concentrate a bit too much on insisting witches didn't actually exist than it ought to, at the expense of citing more than one source for its main body of material. To differentiate is fine, but to say that there were absolutely no witches is unprovable. As with other legendary or semi-legendary phenomena, we simply can't know with certainty. I will be redoing the language accordingly in future. -- Fire Star 04:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any evidence of a neutrality dispute, so I'm removing the tag. Tom Harrison Talk 00:18, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Semantics, I find it hilarious that Witches are said to not exist because people were smart enough not to call themselves something that might get them killed. People are really quite lacking in common sense these days. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.211.159.153 ( talk • contribs)
_________
What I found troubling was this:
"Whether Cunning folk actually did possess any supernatural power is open to debate."
Naturally, supposing that anyone could actually have supernatural power leaves scientific scholarship and moves toward wiccan propganda.
Personally, I think it is fair enough to make clear that the article is written from a neutral point of view, and not one blinkered by the scientistic cult. (And that's nothing against science, the best scientists do not subscribe to the cult; just as [[Isaac Newton]] for all his faults was at least free of "Newton's sleep", William Blake's name for the cult which he unfairly pinned on old Isaac. I'm dropping names just to signal that there is an argument to be had here.) Jeremy ( talk) 01:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Triumph of the Moon (TOTM) has a good roundup of British cunning folk in the 18th and 19th centuries. Including the "last" traditional wise woman said to have dies in the 1930s and to have been in many ways the very stereotype of a witch. She surely deserves a mention by name. TOTM mentions the wise woman in Under the Greenwood Tree but doesn't mention the Cunning Man in Tom Brown's School Days; these figures from realistic fiction probably also should be included.
As sources I would suggest Emma Wilby's "Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits", Alan Macfarlane's "Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England", and of course Owen Davies' "Cunning Folk: Popular Magic in English History". Emma Wilby's work in particular establishes a better context and explanation for the strange practices and beliefs of these individuals. Fuzzypeg ★ 20:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Exciting! I've started adding details from Wilby's excellent book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. I've only added a little bit so far (probably enough already to stir up some controversy though!), but it's 2:30am now and I need some sleep. I'll probably try to add some more before I get stuck into rearranging and careful rationalisation of the sections. The info is roughly in the right place so far, and once we have a bit more we'll be able to see better what we've got to work with. If anyone has complimentary (or contrasting) sources and wants to add in another perspective, that would be great! I don't have Davies, Thomas or Macfarlane in front of me so I'm pretty much a one-book man at the moment. All the best, and good night! Fuzzypeg ★ 14:43, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I just deleted the no references tag, as it is no longer true. Referencing could be improved of course.... Jeremy ( talk) 01:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
"The term white witch was infrequently used for cunning folk until recent times, except in the county of Devon."
Why not in Devon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.171.206.112 ( talk) 20:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
This article needs expanding to cover more than just the British Isles. As it is this article implies that "cunning folk" are only found in Britain, or that they are an originally, or mostly British phenomenon or that all the traditions of them whether English, Welsh, Scots et cetera all derive from the same (sub-)tradition rather than being part of a greater European tradition (and arguably beyond). I shall be expanding this article soon so that it is less UK-centric and covers the tradition(s) as a whole rather than presenting a biased and incorrect version of history (as is too often the case). Sigurd Dragon Slayer ( talk) 10:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Or this could be a page linked to from the larger Cunning folk page? Sigurd Dragon Slayer ( talk) 10:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Hello all. I've recently been revamping and adding to this page, based upon the works of Ronald Hutton, Owen Davies and Emma Wilby (I hope that you like the improvements), but am a bit stumped when it comes to discussing the legality and nature of the cunning craft in Scotland during the Early Modern period, when it was of course a political and national entity independent from England and Wales. Does anyone who specialises in Scottish magic know of any good academic sources that discuss this? Many thanks ( Midnightblueowl ( talk) 14:09, 17 December 2010 (UTC))
I'm portuguese and never heard this term. I´ve heard "mulher astuta"- cunning woman, "mulher de virtude" - woman of virtue and "curandeiro" - healer. What is the source for the term "saludadores"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.214.155.209 ( talk) 23:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
The search sugests a mistake by Davies, as this word appears to be spanish. "Saludadores" deriving from "salud" - health in spanish. On the outher hand, the term "curanderos", though it exists in spanish, is very similar to the portuguese "curandeiros". Perhaps the two words got mixed up. I can't find "saludadores" in the diccionary either. Don't think it is an ancient term, the root of the word is "salud" and the portuguese equivalent is "saúde". Now I know that if such a mistake was done by Davies, there is litle you can do about it; the quote is correct, it is the source that is incorrect. It's one of the problems with wikipedia... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.140.33.187 ( talk) 01:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on Cunning folk in Britain. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 09:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)