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.
🇫🇷 France and 1 moreDusios
A Gaulish spirit type later classified as an incubus demon by early Christian writersBeing · Cursing and harm · Power and authority Historical
🇮🇹 ItalyScrofa semilanuta
A legendary sow seen in a dream that became the ancient emblem of Milan.Figure · Wonder and entertainment · Seeing and foretelling Historical
🇮🇪 IrelandLatoon fairy bush
A whitethorn tree in County Clare saved from a motorway by folkloric warnings of misfortuneBelief · Protection Living
🇫🇷 France and 4 moreEctoplasm
A substance said to be excreted by mediums during séances, later exposed as common household materials.Substance · Speaking with spirits and the dead Historical
🇯🇵 Japan and 3 moreThoughtography念写
A claimed psychic ability to imprint mental images directly onto photographic film.Belief · Wonder and entertainment Historical
🇯🇵 JapanKamikiri髪切り
A Japanese yōkai blamed for the sudden disappearance of human hairBeing · Cursing and harm Historical
🇮🇪 IrelandJack O'The Lantern
An Irish folktale about a deceitful man condemned to wander with a carved lanternFigure · Wonder and entertainment Historical
🇬🇧 United KingdomCurse of Scotland
A nickname for a playing card linked to bad luck and Scottish historyBelief · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇺🇸 United States and 1 moreBaskerville effect
A theory that superstition about unlucky numbers causes heart attacks through stressBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇬🇧 United KingdomLantern man
A ghost light of the English fens said to lure victims into the marshesBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇮🇷 Iran and 5 moreAxis mundi
A concept describing a central point connecting the earthly and heavenly realms.Belief · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Power and authority Historical
🇪🇬 EgyptEgyptian days
Medieval calendar days believed to bring bad luck for new ventures and medical proceduresBelief · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇷🇸 Serbia and 3 moreBožićБожић
A Slavic figure linked to the new year and spring, whose name now marks ChristmasFigure · Luck and prosperity · Wonder and entertainment Historical
🇮🇳 IndiaCausal plane
A high spiritual realm in Theosophy and New Age cosmologyBelief · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Change and initiation 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
🇷🇺 RussiaAugust curse
A Russian belief that severe disasters and national tragedies cluster in the month of August.Belief Living
🇩🇿 AlgeriaTassili Mushroom Figure
Neolithic cave art in Algeria interpreted by some as depicting psychedelic mushroom use.Belief · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Wonder and entertainment Historical
🇫🇷 FranceMagonia
A cloud realm of aerial sailors blamed for hail and stolen grain in medieval EuropeBelief · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Historical
🇸🇪 Sweden and 4 moreSun cross
A cross inside a circle found in prehistoric art and modern political symbolsBelief · Power and authority Historical
🇯🇵 JapanShiranui不知火
Atmospheric ghost lights of the Yatsushiro and Ariake Seas in JapanBelief · Wonder and entertainment · 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
🇬🇷 GreeceAstrology and astronomy
Two disciplines that shared a history before splitting into science and divinationTradition · Seeing and foretelling · Power and authority Historical
🇨🇳 ChinaFish in Chinese mythology鱼 (yú)
A cultural symbol of wealth and abundance in Chinese traditionBelief · Luck and prosperity · Love and attraction Living
🇨🇲 CameroonNyongo society
A witch legend from Cameroon used to explain sudden wealth and unexplained deathBelief · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Living
🇬🇷 Greece and 1 moreMaternal impression
A discredited theory that a mother's shock or thoughts can mark her unborn childBelief · Cursing and harm Historical
🇮🇳 India and 5 moreLock of hair
A piece of human hair kept for symbolic, sentimental, or superstitious reasons.Substance · Protection · Luck and prosperity Living
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Mediumship: Harvey Metcalfe, Public domain, source
- Scrofa semilanuta: M.casanova, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Dusios: Eric Hunt, CC BY-SA 2.5, source
- Tassili Mushroom Figure: I redrawn the rock art written by ancient people., Public domain, source
- Curse of Scotland: James Gillray (died 1815), Public domain, source
- Jack O'The Lantern: Bodrugan, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Egyptian days: Unknown Unknown (Paris scriptorium), Public domain, source
- Lock of hair: Unknown author, CC0, source
- Kamikiri: Sawaki Suushi (佐脇嵩之, Japanese, *1707, †1772), Public domain, source
- Axis mundi: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Sun cross: National Museum of Denmark, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Astrology and astronomy: anonymous, Public domain, source
- Fish in Chinese mythology: Daderot, Public domain, source