The Cunning Folk

Cunning folk was a term used in English society. They were practitioners of many arts, but some of the more common ones were healing, treasure seeking, finding lost property, fortune telling, and love magic. They were also known as wise men/women, conjurers, and wizards. In Scotland, they were called the spae wife. Some notes I've come across say they were well regarded members of the community, and in many cases that respect likely bordered on fear.

A fine line separated cunning folk from witches because they often performed magic. Generally speaking, the cunning man/woman performed good magic, while a witch performed black magic associated with evil. Some cunning folk specialized in detecting witches.

Owen Davies is often considered to be the leading authority on the cunning folk, yet he narrowly defines the realm to popular magical practitioners, which excludes a number of specialists like the fortune tellers. He states there were at least one cunning person to every 2,500-3,000 English people, and that 2/3 of the cunning folk were male. Gender ratios, however, varied from area to area.

Cunning folk helped people's health, physically and spiritually. The people who opposed them the most were the doctors and clergy. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the cunning folks' magical acts were made illegal under the Conjuration and Witchcraft Acts. Even before the acts went into effect, many clergymen felt they should be weeded out and killed.

Few met that fate because in general people regarded them as valuable members of the community. In the cases where they received the death sentence, they were usually found guilty of performing maleficent magic.

Some historians, including Owen Davies, argue that Europe had no shamans. When the narrowest definition of shamanism relating to the Tungusic language of Siberia is used, it's not surprising to arrive at this conclusion. However, when the more accepted anthropological definition of healers who used magic for curing the sick, divining the hidden, and foretelling the future--often while traveling between the human and spirit worlds--it's easier to see that Europe did indeed have shamans in the cunning folk.

In England, Emma Wilby shows that the cunning folk had familiar spirits and claims that such spirits originate from animistic religion, common among indigenous tribal groups. Fairy folk were common entities with little distinction being made between a fairy and an angel, saint, ghost, or the devil. Generally, fairies were associated with the dead. Few people could see fairies, and it was a realm generally reserved for magical practitioners, such as the cunning folk.

Historians have differing opinions as to whether the cunning folk ever reached the North American shores. At least two of the witch trials in Virginia seem to have been of cunning women. In 1626, Joan Wright was a midwife and had been known for fortune telling people's deaths. Later in the century, the most famous witch trial was that of Grace Sherwood's. She was a known healer and a midwife.

Because of their commonness during the seventeenth century, I have no doubt the cunning folk did indeed reach Virginia.

Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.Net

Grace Sherwood--Witch of Pungo

Like many women charged with being witches during the seventeenth century, Grace Sherwood was a nonconformist. Said to have been strikingly attractive, she fully admitted to being a healer, herbalist, and a midwife. She owned prime waterfront property in Virginia and wore trousers when she planted crops.

Her troubles began in February 1698. A neighbor by the name of Richard Capps had apparently spread the word that Grace was a witch. With her husband's help, she sued Capps for slander. An agreement was believed to have been worked out as the suit was dismissed one month later.

Six months later, Grace again faced accusations of witchcraft. John Gisburne (a constable of Princess Anne county) and his wife Jane claimed that Grace had "...bewitched their piggs to death and bewitched their Cotton." At the same time, Elizabeth Barnes vowed that Grace had come to her during the night and rode her. She went on to say, "...[Grace] went out of the key hole or crack of the door like a black Catt."

Once again, Grace and her husband sued for defamation of character. The jury found for the defendants, and the Sherwoods were left to pay the court costs.

James Sherwood died in 1701, leaving Grace with a small estate. In 1706, she got into a fight with a neighbor by the name of Elizabeth Hill. Grace ended up suing Elizabeth and her husband Luke for assault and battery. The justices awarded her twenty shillings in damages.

The judgment was a small portion of what Grace had sued for, but the Hills brought accusations of witchcraft, saying that Grace had bewitched Elizabeth. In March, a jury of women searched Grace Sherwood with these findings, "two things like titts wth Severall other Spotts." The forewoman of the jury happened to be Elizabeth Barnes, the same woman who had been involved in a slander suit a few years earlier.

As a result, Grace's case went to the General Court and Attorney General. The charges were returned to the county level with the suggestion that a jury of women again search Grace as well as her house. The jury refused to appear.

In July, the county wished to settle the affair once and for all, and the justices ordered the sheriff to try her by ducking. Later in the month, Grace was lead from her cell where a crowd gathered, chanting, "Duck the witch!" She was stripped to her shift, then tied crossbound with the thumb of her left hand to the big toe of her right foot, and her left thumb to her right big toe. From a boat, she was lowered in a pond, where she floated and was found guilty. Brought to shore, she was searched by a jury of woman. Again, they discovered the two suspicious moles.

Grace was taken into custody. After her release in 1714, she paid the back taxes on her property. Apparently afterward, she lived a quiet life. A will was found dated 1733 and probated in 1740, where she died at the age of 80. On July 10, 2006, 300 years after Grace's ducking, she was pardoned by the 70^th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Timothy M. Kaine.

Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.Net

Witches of Virginia

In North America, most people think of Salem when witch trials are mentioned, but Virginia has the dubious honor of holding the first such trial on the continent in 1626. Before then, the Powhatan priests were often regarded by the English as witches. In 1613, Reverend Alexander Whitaker stated in Good newes from Virginia, "Their priests (whom they call Quiokosoughs) are no other but such as our English Witches are." Perhaps the colonists preoccupation with the native population and the fact that few English women had yet to arrive held off trials in the beginning.

In any case, Virginia was far less rabid in prosecuting witches than either the home country or Salem. Only thirteen women and two men are known to have been tried for the crime. Granted, many records are likely to have been lost over the centuries, but most of those accused were found not guilty and often turned the tables on the accuser by successfully suing for defamation of character.

Joan Wright was the first person in Virginia to have been tried for being a witch in September 1626. Goody Wright was most likely a cunning woman. Because few in the seventeenth century could afford physicians and those who could often didn't trust them, cunning folk were popular healers for the masses. Joan engaged in foretelling the future and was a midwife. Also, she was left handed, which further helped her accusers to place blame on her being in league with the devil.

Apparently, on at least three occasions, Joan prophesied that certain individuals would bury their spouses, which indeed came to pass. Of course, with modern sensibility, we know that healers of any era often can make such predictions with a high degree of accuracy. In one case, she attended the birth of Lieutenant Giles Allington's wife. Due to Joan's left handedness, Allington's wife distrusted her and a second midwife also assisted.

After the delivery, the woman grew sore in the breast (most likely an infection) and was bedridden for five weeks. Soon after, the lieutenant himself fell sick as did the child. Goody Wright was accused of witchcraft for these incidents and several others. Unfortunately, the record is unclear as to what punishment, if any, she might have received, or even if she was found guilty. However, she was fined one hundred pounds of tobacco for an unspecified act.

Katherine Grady has the unfortunate distinction of being the only person executed in the colony for the offense. In 1654, she was en route from England to Virginia when a violent storm hit. Such disturbances were often associated with witchcraft. Of the passengers, Kath Grady, an elderly woman, apparently best fit the description of a sorceress. Detailed accounts either went unrecorded or were lost, but the captain hung the woman during the storm. Although technically she had yet to arrive on Virginia's shores, the colony can be held accountable for her death as the case fell under its jurisdiction, where the captain reported upon reaching the Jamestown port.

Reverend David Lindsay emigrated from Scotland, a country with many witch trials, and accused William Harding of witchcraft in 1656. He was sentenced with thirteen lashes of the whip and ordered to leave the county. The records do not reveal what it was that he had done to have been found guilty.

Other cases included the usual bewitching of horses, cows, and chickens. Some women were inspected for witch marks on their bodies, but in only one other case were there any serious accusations.

The most famous witch in Virginia's history is Grace Sherwood. She was a healer, a midwife, and most likely a cunning woman. She was body searched, ducked, and finally vindicated on July 10, 2006 when Governor Tim Kaine restored her good name. I'll feature her in a future post as the Witch of Pungo deserves her own space.

Kim Murphy
www.KimMurphy.Net