Witches, sorcerers and cunning folk: who they are and what they do

Witches, sorcerers and cunning folk are those a community names as workers of magic. The word can be an accusation, a self-description or a job. In Europe, the cunning folk were paid to find stolen goods and lift bewitchment. In Africa, the witch is often a figure of fear. In modern Wicca, witch is a religious identity. This page covers who is called a witch, who accepts the name, and what the label has cost.

Many meanings

The word covers different people. The Azande distinguished witchcraft, an innate harmful power, from sorcery, an act that uses medicines. The Navajo speak of skinwalkers, a belief the community regards as sensitive. In Europe, cunning folk were respected helpers, while the witch of the trials was a heretic by definition. In modern Britain and America, many people proudly call themselves witches. It is a word that changes meaning with the speaker, and the history of the word is a history of suspicion, fear and, lately, pride.

The persecuted

Between about 1450 and 1750, trials in Europe and its colonies killed tens of thousands, mostly women, including at Salem in 1692. Accusations persist: in parts of Africa, India, Papua New Guinea and Saudi Arabia, people are beaten, banished or killed as witches. Older women, widows, children, disabled people and albino people are among the most at risk. Hunts often follow illness, drought or a death. Many of the accused confessed under torture, and historians treat such confessions with caution.

Gender, class and the state

Accusation tends to fall on the poor and the isolated. States respond differently: Ghana's camps for accused women hold hundreds of people, and Tanzania still has a Witchcraft Act from the colonial period. Colonial administrations criminalised accusation in some places and the practice in others. In India, several states have passed laws against witch-hunting. Class counted, since wealthy people accused of witchcraft in Europe could often buy delay, while poor women had less chance of acquittal.

Revival and fantasy

In the twentieth century, writers such as Margaret Murray argued that witches were survivors of a pagan religion, a thesis that historians have since rejected. The idea nonetheless inspired Gerald Gardner and modern Wicca, which dates from the 1950s. Today the witch is also a figure in fashion, social media and publishing, where commercial use is widespread. Many Pagans and witches now push back against the commercial image, saying that a real practice is private and ethical.

Photo credits on this page

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

Bald's Leechbook: Unknown, the Internet Archive scan is low quality, and some of the tex, Public domain, source

Witchcraft in Latin America: Unknown author, CC BY 4.0, source

Asian witchcraft: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Public domain, source

Magic circle: John William Waterhouse, Public domain, source

Baphomet: Eliphas Levi, Public domain, source

Love magic: Kölner Meister [ 1 ] The artist is an unknown lower Rhenish artist. [, Public domain, source

Pentagram: Tomruen, Attribution, source

Germanic seeress: Emil Doepler, Public domain, source

Azande witchcraft: Unknown author, CC BY 4.0, source

Witches, sorcerers and cunning folk