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- Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic is a study of the beliefs regarding witchcraft and magic in Early Modern Britain written by the British historian Emma Wilby. First published by in 2003, the book presented Wilby's theory that the beliefs regarding familiar spirits found among magical practitioners – both benevolent cunning folk and malevolent witches – reflected evidence for a general folk belief in these beings, which stemmed from a pre-Christian visionary tradition. Building on the work of earlier historians such as Carlo Ginzburg, Éva Pócs and Gabór Klaniczay, all of whom argued that Early Modern beliefs about magic and witchcraft were influenced by a substratum of shamanistic beliefs found in pockets across Europe, in Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits, Wilby focuses in on Britain, using the recorded witch trial texts as evidence to back up this theory. The book is divided into three parts, each of which expand on a different area of Wilby's argument; the first details Wilby's argument that familiar spirits were a concept widely found among ordinary magical practitioners rather than being an invention of demonologists conducting witch trials. The second then proceeds to argue that these familiar spirits were not simply a part of popular folklore, but reflected the existence of a living visionary tradition, which was shamanistic and pre-Christian in origin. Finally, in the third part of the book, Wilby looks at the significance of this tradition for Britain's spiritual heritage. Reviews of the book published in specialist academic journals were mixed, with some scholars supporting and others rejecting Wilby's theory, although all noted the importance of such a work for witchcraft studies. Wilby meanwhile would go on to expand her theory by focusing it in on the case of the accused witch Isobel Gowdie for her second book, The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (2010), also published by Sussex Academic Press. (en)
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- 317 (xsd:positiveInteger)
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- 22733 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger)
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- The book's jacket displays a detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights , an oil painting by the Medieval Dutch artist Hieronymous Bosch . (en)
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- Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: (en)
- Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (en)
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- "In its intellectual sophistication and ethical awareness it offers an excellent model of how the stories of witches and cunning people might best be approached. In this it follows in the footsteps of at least two of the author's major influences, Ronald Hutton and the late Gareth Roberts. Both of these scholars' works sensitively walk a line between the traditional concept of academic objectivity and the human subjectivity that inevitably will and certainly should connect the author with his or her theme." (en)
- "Emma Wilby's views challenge those of other current historians, notably Owen Davies, who sees cunning folk as far more pragmatic and down-to-earth, and Diane Purkiss, who interprets the encounters of witches with fairies as compensatory psychological fantasies. The debate between these and other scholars will be very instructive." (en)
- "Historians such as Carlo Ginzburg, Gabór Klaniczay and Éva Pócs have argued that descriptions of sabbath experiences and familiar-encounters found in early modern European witch trials were expressions of popular experiential traditions rooted in pre-Christian shamanistic beliefs and practices. As a result of this work, most scholars now acknowledge that there was a genuinely folkloric component to European witch beliefs in this period, although opinions still differ as to its extent." (en)
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- Emma Wilby, 2005. (en)
- Folklorist Jacqueline Simpson, 2006. (en)
- Historian Marion Gibson, 2008. (en)
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- Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic is a study of the beliefs regarding witchcraft and magic in Early Modern Britain written by the British historian Emma Wilby. First published by in 2003, the book presented Wilby's theory that the beliefs regarding familiar spirits found among magical practitioners – both benevolent cunning folk and malevolent witches – reflected evidence for a general folk belief in these beings, which stemmed from a pre-Christian visionary tradition. (en)
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- Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits (en)
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- (en)
- Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: (en)
- Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (en)
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