Folk and village custom: magic in this belief world
Rural and household beliefs that belong to no single organised religion.
Folk and village custom is the large body of belief and practice that belongs to no organised religion: the charm against the evil eye, the cure for warts, the fairy hawthorn, the household spirit, the lucky day. It is passed within families and communities and exists in every society. This page looks at how it is kept, who keeps it, and why it is both valued and dismissed. It is also called popular religion, vernacular religion or lived religion by scholars.
Keepers and settings
Keepers are often older women, farmers, midwives, shepherds and craftsmen. Settings are the house, field, well, crossroads and church porch. European cunning folk offered help for fees and kept charms and books. In many Asian and African villages the specialist is a healer, a diviner or a spirit medium working beside religion. The same grandmother may light a candle at church, tie a thread on a child and say a charm for a burn, and see no conflict between them.
Names and labels
The same thing carries many names: the evil eye is the nazar, mal de ojo and ayin hara. Folklorists collected such customs from the nineteenth century, sometimes as relics of a vanished past and sometimes as living culture. The label folk also marks class, since the term often implies rural, poor or uneducated, a bias that modern scholars try to avoid. Where the village has a wise woman or a bone-setter, the community knows what to ask of her and what she will refuse to do.
Religion, state and reform
Churches, mosques and temples have absorbed, tolerated and condemned folk practice in turn. States have banned it as backward: Chinese campaigns against superstition in the twentieth century closed local temples and shrines, and Soviet policy targeted village healers. At times governments have turned to it as national heritage, as in revived festivals across Europe and Asia. Historians and folklorists note that it often keeps old customs alive within newer religions, such as lighting fires at midsummer within Christian saints' days.
Change and commerce
Urban life and migration thin out folk knowledge, while heritage projects and the internet gather it. Customs reappear as products, such as protective charms in shops and festival tourism. Some folk practice carries harm: village accusation of witchcraft, treatments that delay medical care, and fees charged to relieve fear. Illness needs real medical care. In places with active heritage movements, folk custom has become a source of pride, and young people record songs and cures from grandparents before they are lost.
Folk and village custom on EveryJaadu
The entries written up so far, best known first.
🇷🇸 Serbia and 1 moreVampire pumpkins and watermelons
A Balkan folk tale about ground fruit that turns into vampires.Belief · Cursing and harm Legendary
🇯🇵 Japan and 1 moreBake-danuki化け狸
A shape-shifting raccoon dog spirit from Japanese folklore known for pranks and illusions.Being · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Legendary
🇯🇵 JapanKamikiri髪切り
A Japanese yōkai blamed for the sudden disappearance of human hairBeing · Cursing and harm Historical
🇿🇦 South Africa and 4 moreModern witch-hunts
Contemporary violence against people accused of using magic to cause harmBelief · Cursing and harm Living
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan and 3 moreCurse of TimurПроклятие Тамерлана
A rumor that disturbing the conqueror's tomb brings invasion and calamity.Belief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇺🇸 United States and 2 moreFlying Africans
A legend of enslaved people returning to Africa by magic flightFigure · Cursing and harm · Speaking with spirits and the dead Legendary
🇬🇹 Guatemala and 1 moreEl Sombrerón
A tall, hat-wearing figure from Guatemalan legend who courts young women and haunts neighborhoods at dusk.Figure · Love and attraction · Cursing and harm Legendary
🇿🇦 South AfricaTagati
A South African English term for a harmful wizard or poisoner, from Zulu roots.Belief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇺🇸 United States and 1 moreBaskerville effect
A theory that superstition about unlucky numbers causes heart attacks through stressBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇨🇳 China and 3 moreSwan maiden
A folk motif where a man steals a bird-woman's feather cloak to force marriage.Figure · Love and attraction · Cursing and harm Legendary
🇬🇧 United KingdomLantern man
A ghost light of the English fens said to lure victims into the marshesBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇯🇲 Jamaica and 4 moreJumbee
A shadowy spirit of the dead in Caribbean folklore, often linked to evil deeds.Belief · Cursing and harm Living
🇨🇲 CameroonNyongo society
A witch legend from Cameroon used to explain sudden wealth and unexplained deathBelief · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Living
🇨🇳 ChinaChinese sorcery scares
A series of moral panics in Imperial China driven by fears of magical harm and hair cuttingBelief · Cursing and harm · Power and authority Historical
🇫🇷 FranceTempestarii
Medieval figures accused of controlling storms and the beliefs surrounding them.Belief · Cursing and harm · Protection Historical
🇺🇸 United StatesBelled buzzard
A folklore omen of disaster, depicted as a vulture wearing a bellBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇩🇪 Germany and 3 moreDrude
A Germanic nightmare spirit and the pentagram charm used to keep it outBeing · Cursing and harm · Protection Historical
🇺🇸 United StatesMoll Dyer
A Maryland folktale about a woman accused of witchcraft and her cursed stoneFigure · Cursing and harm · Protection Legendary
🇮🇩 IndonesiaBabi ngepet
A Javanese myth about a person who turns into a boar to steal wealthBeing · Luck and prosperity · Cursing and harm Legendary
🇯🇵 JapanAyakashi妖
Water spirits and ghost lights in Japanese folkloreBeing · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇫🇷 FranceMagonia
A cloud realm of aerial sailors blamed for hail and stolen grain in medieval EuropeBelief · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇲🇦 Morocco and 1 moreZuhriزوهري
A human-djinn hybrid child in North African folklore, sought for treasure ritualsBeing · Luck and prosperity · Cursing and harm Fading
🇨🇴 Colombia and 1 moreLa Bolefuego
A fiery apparition from the Llanos that hunts travelers and avoids prayer.Figure · Cursing and harm Legendary
🇮🇪 IrelandDeath coachcóiste bodhar
A spectral carriage that signals an unavoidable death in European folkloreBelief · Cursing and harm Legendary
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Flying Africans: Matthew T Rader, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Belled buzzard: Saturday Evening Post Irvin Cobb Douglas Durr, Public domain, source
- Drude: Ramessos, Public domain, source
- Moll Dyer: Dougtone, CC BY-SA 2.0, source
- Babi ngepet: Tropenmuseum, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Vampire pumpkins and watermelons: The original uploader was Ke4roh at English Wikipedia ., Public domain, source
- Bake-danuki: Poposhka at English Wikipedia, Public domain, source
- Kamikiri: Sawaki Suushi (佐脇嵩之, Japanese, *1707, †1772), Public domain, source
- Swan maiden: Walter Crane, Public domain, source