Cunning Women: A feminist tale of forbidden love after the witch trials

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Yet by teasing out the true identities of cunning-women from the historic record, a very different understanding of them is consequently revealed, from before the word ‘witch’ conjured images of green skin, hooked noses and unholy unions with the devil. From centuries of attempts to eradicate cunning-women, such as the Augustinian reworking of woman’s role in sin, the misogynistic writing of Bishop Prüm, the assimilation of paganism by Pope Gregory and the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (and all this before the advent of the witch trials), it becomes clear that condemning them, changing their tribal name to witch, torturing them, burning them and re-branding their pagan beliefs as evil, has only served to confuse, confound and portray women as lesser creatures than men – a view which, arguably, persists today. Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider and call for the mourning women to come; Send for the wailing women to come. Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Consider and call for the mourning women, That they may come; And send for skillful wailing women, That they may come.

Britain throughout the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods was an almost entirely Christian society (with the only exception being a small Jewish population), although during this period there was a gradual shift from adherence to Roman Catholicism to forms of Anglicanism and Protestantism following the English Reformation in the sixteenth century. It was because of this that the cunning folk operating in this era typically worked within a Christian framework and world view. The Lord is like an enemy; He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation for the Daughter of Judah. Some of the spells and charms that had been used in the Anglo-Saxon polytheist era continued to be used following Christianization. However, as historian Owen Davies noted, "although some such pre-Christian magic continued, to label it pagan is to misrepresent the people who used it and the context in which it was used." [21] If you want to receive oral sex but feel self-conscious for any reason, Calvert suggests getting to know your own body. ‘Think about your relationship with your genitals – what do you feel about your vulva? What do you feel about oral sex and receiving pleasure? When having sex, practice staying in the body, and in the present.’ The LORD who rules over all told me to say to this people, "Take note of what I say. Call for the women who mourn for the dead! Summon those who are the most skilled at it!"Whilst grimoires had been around in Europe since the ancient period, and many new grimoires had been produced during the Medieval, they had remained highly expensive and hand written items that the average person would not have had access to. In the Early Modern period, this began to change as the invention of printing allowed grimoires to be produced in greater numbers; initially this had primarily been in languages other than English, particularly Latin, but in the mid-sixteenth century, English translations of Albertus Magnus' Book of Secrets were produced, whilst the printing of English-language grimoires increased in the seventeenth century. Another significant grimoire to be published in English was James Freake's translation of Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, which "must have generated a good deal of interest among [the cunning folk] and other less well-educated magical practitioners at the time." [52] Equally popular was the English astrologer Robert Turner's translation of the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy (1655), which was erroneously attributed to having been written by Agrippa. [53] By the nineteenth century, Scotland had been politically united with England, Wales and also Ireland as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, controlled by a central government in London. Such a political union also brought about an increase in cultural diffusion and unity between the various nations. It was in nineteenth-century Scotland that an agricultural organization that acted as both a trade union and a magical fraternity known as the Society of the Horseman's Word was founded. Its members, whilst not being cunning folk, practiced folk magic, and soon an English alternative, the Society of Horsemen, had also been founded. The spread of such magical groups and their ideas could be seen in the diffusion of the toad bone rite, which was used by such horseman's groups and various cunning folk, and examples of which could be found scattered across Britain, from Nevern in Pembrokeshire, Wales, to East Anglia in England. [50] A news report from 1870 detailed a number of cases brought before authorities in the nineteenth century where claims of powers were made, but it ridiculed the belief, and closed with an example where 'the charge was settled down to the more definite one of obtaining a shilling under false pretenses'. [82] Obelkevitch, James (1976). Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsay 1825–1875. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Whilst the historian Keith Thomas had touched upon the subject of English popular magic in his Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), in a 1994 article on the subject of the cunning folk, the historian Willem de Blécourt stated that the study of the subject, "properly speaking, has yet to start." [46] These ideas were echoed in 1999, when the historian Ronald Hutton, in his The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, remarked that the study of the cunning folk and European folk magic was "notoriously, an area that has been comparatively neglected by academic scholars." [2] Nonetheless, articles on the subject were published in the late 1990s, primarily by the historian Owen Davies, who in 2003 published Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History (which was later republished under the altered title of Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History in 2007). This was followed in 2005 with the publication of Emma Wilby's Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic, which took an attitude to the cunning craft somewhat different from those of Hutton and Davies, emphasising a spiritual dimension to the magic of the cunning folk complementary to - and underpinning - its more practical aspects.Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “Carefully consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; And send for the skillful women, that they may come! Sin é ad Spearing is an author and cultural historian specialising in the history of folk-healing and spirituality. Her books include Old English Medical remedies and A History of Women in Medicine. Thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come: and send to them that are wise women, and let them make haste: Maple, Eric (December 1960). "The Witches of Canewdon". Folklore. 71 (4): 241–250. doi: 10.1080/0015587X.1960.9717250.

This is what the LORD of Armies says: Consider, and summon the women who mourn; send for the skillful women. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for skillful women, that they may come: Madlevskaya, Elena (2005). Russkaya Mifologia. Entsiklopedia (in Russian). Moscow. p.562. ISBN 5-699-13535-9. {{ cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher ( link) This article was co-authored by Hyungbum Kang, MA, MSW, LCSW, MAC. Hyungbum Kang is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker based in Honolulu, Hawaii. With over a decade of experience, Hyungbum specializes in using an integrated therapeutic approach to treat ADHD, Anger Management, Depression, and other mental health and social work struggles. He received a Bachelor’s degree in English and Master’s degrees in Sociology and Social Work. Hyungbum earned an MBA from Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) and is working on his Doctor of Psychology from HPU. He is a member of the American Psychological Association, the International Honor Society in Psychology, the National Association of Social Workers, and the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals. When printed books on the occult, particularly in the English language, had begun to be produced, some cunning folk obtained, and used, grimoires, or books of magic. In many cases they made a big show of the fact that they owned such tomes, which would have appeared impressive in the minds of many of their customers in a period where only a minority of people were able to read and write in Britain. [51] Indeed, some cunning folk appeared to own these grimoires purely for cosmetic reasons, to impress their clients, and did not actually make use of any of the magical rituals contained within them. [47]Calvert says many women and vulva-having people have internalised negative messages about their genitals, sex and pleasure. ‘They may be uncomfortable about receiving oral sex because it puts them in the spotlight and they feel less in control. They may feel pressure to perform to please their partner – pressure to orgasm,’ she adds.