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EveryJaadu

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.

RegionSouth AsiaSoutheast AsiaEast AsiaCentral Asia and the CaucasusMiddle EastNorth AfricaSub-Saharan AfricaEuropeNorth AmericaLatin America and the CaribbeanOceania
KindTraditionRiteCharmOracleSubstanceBeingFigureTextIllusionBelief
PurposeProtectionHealingSeeing and foretellingLuck and prosperityLove and attractionCursing and harmCleansing and purificationSpeaking with spirits and the deadChange and initiationBinding and oathsPower and authorityWonder and entertainment
WhoShamansFolk healersPriests and ritual specialistsWitches, sorcerers and cunning folkDiviners and readersMediums and the possessedCeremonial magicians and alchemistsHouseholds and ordinary peopleStage magiciansScholars and sceptics
OccasionWeddings and betrothalFestivalsBirth and childhoodDeath and remembranceHarvest, farming and weatherNew yearInitiation and coming of ageIllness and misfortuneJourneys and voyagesEveryday use
StandingLivingRevivedFadingHistoricalLegendaryPerformed
OrderBest knownA to ZNewestLiving first
🇮🇶 Iraq and 4 moreAstrology A system of divination that links human affairs to the positions of celestial bodiesTradition · Seeing and foretelling · Luck and prosperity Living 🇨🇳 China and 3 moreQi氣 / 气 A vital force in Chinese philosophy and medicine, believed to flow through all living things.Substance · Healing · Power and authority Living 🇳🇴 Norway and 2 moreValknut A symbol of three interlocked triangles found on Germanic artifacts and used in modern Heathenry.Belief · Power and authority Living 🇮🇪 Ireland and 5 moreFairy ring A natural ring of mushrooms surrounded by folklore about dancing spirits and witches.Belief · Wonder and entertainment Living 🇨🇳 China and 2 moreOnomancy Divination based on the letters, numbers, or written strokes of a person's nameOracle · Seeing and foretelling · Luck and prosperity Living 🇬🇷 Greece and 5 moreBay Laurelδάφνη An aromatic Mediterranean plant used in cooking and as a symbol of victory and purification.Substance · Protection · Cleansing and purification Living 🇸🇳 Senegal and 5 morePentagramπεντάγραμμον A five-pointed star figure used across history for protection, ritual, and cosmologyCharm · Protection · Binding and oaths Living 🇬🇧 United Kingdom and 1 moreScottish folkloreBeul-aithris na h-Alba The myths, creatures and beliefs of the Scottish people, recorded from ancient times to the present.Tradition · Seeing and foretelling · Protection Living 🇪🇸 SpainFolklore of Spain The oral traditions, legends, and folktales of the Iberian PeninsulaTradition · Wonder and entertainment Living 🇷🇺 Russia and 7 moreSlavic Native FaithРодноверие A modern polytheistic movement drawing on Slavic folklore, romanticism, and global spiritual traditions.Tradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Power and authority Living 🇮🇪 Ireland and 4 moreWinter solstice The shortest day and longest night of the year, marked by rites of solar returnTradition · Seeing and foretelling · Protection Living 🇮🇳 India and 2 morePlanets in astrology Seven celestial bodies used to map human character and destinyBelief · Power and authority · Luck and prosperity Living 🇨🇦 Canada and 1 moreTotemdoodem A spirit or symbol linking a group to nature, from Ojibwe clan systems to Australian kinshipBelief · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Power and authority Living 🇨🇴 ColombiaColombian folklore Beliefs and legends passed down through generations in ColombiaTradition · Wonder and entertainment Living 🇬🇧 United Kingdom and 7 moreSaint Andrew's Day A Christian feast day marked by national holidays in Scotland and Romania, and folk divination across Europe.Rite · Seeing and foretelling · Luck and prosperity Living 🇨🇳 China and 1 moreBagua八卦 A set of eight trigram symbols from China used in divination, cosmology, and feng shui.Tradition · Seeing and foretelling · Protection Living 🇮🇳 India and 3 moreSpirit An invisible force or soul found in many cultures, linked to gods, humans, and nature.Being · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Power and authority Living 🇺🇸 United StatesAshtar A channeled extraterrestrial figure central to mid-century American ufology and New Age spiritualityBeing · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Living 🇯🇲 Jamaica and 3 moreDuppy A Caribbean term for a ghost or malevolent spirit, rooted in West African folklore.Being · Cursing and harm · Luck and prosperity Living 🇨🇳 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 🇮🇳 India and 5 moreLock of hair A piece of human hair kept for symbolic, sentimental, or superstitious reasons.Substance · Protection · Luck and prosperity Living 🇮🇪 IrelandLatoon fairy bush A whitethorn tree in County Clare saved from a motorway by folkloric warnings of misfortuneBelief · Protection Living 🇮🇳 IndiaCausal plane A high spiritual realm in Theosophy and New Age cosmologyBelief · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Change and initiation Living 🇷🇺 RussiaAugust curse A Russian belief that severe disasters and national tragedies cluster in the month of August.Belief Living

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: seven entries you may not know, what is on the calendar this week, and one rite drawn step by step.