Cunning Folk

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Cunning Folk transports us to a time when magic was used to solve life’s day-to-day problems – as well as some of deadly importance.

It’s 1600 and you’ve lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they’ve been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you’re facing trial. Maybe you’re looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do? In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might well have been cunning folk: practitioners of magic who were a common, even essential part of daily life, at a time when the supernatural was surprisingly mundane.

Charming, thought-provoking and based on original research, Cunning Folk is an immersive reconstruction of a bygone world by an expert historian, as well as a commentary on the beauty and bafflement of being human.

‘A brilliant book, written with wit and vigour’ MALCOLM GASKILL, author of The Ruin of All Witches

‘Absolutely fascinating’ IAN MORTIMER, author of The Time-Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England

‘I adore Cunning Folk. A truly fascinating and human book’ Ruth Goodman, author of How To Be a Tudor

‘Packed with vivid historical anecdotes, this is an intriguing insight into the magical lives of past people and the history of our own superstitions today’ Marion Gibson, author of Witchcraft

‘Fascinating . . . opens a window into another world’ Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I

‘Full of such magical tips and colourful vignettes . . . crackles with incident’ Kate Maltby, Financial Times

‘Spirited and richly detailed’ New York Times

©2024 Tabitha Stanmore (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

This is a brilliant book, written with wit and vigour, in which Tabitha Stanmore explores the pre-modern places where magic was real, offering not only practical solutions for ordinary problems but a way of feeling about the world, an emotional relationship between anxious humans, cosmic forces, and the mundane mysteries of their lives
Malcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of All Witches
Absolutely fascinating. Cunning Folk is a much-needed book that draws attention to a little-known but important aspect of daily life. Like all good history books, it tells us about ourselves as well as the past. It will both inform and inspire readers
Ian Mortimer, author of Medieval Horizons
Eye-opening ... [Cunning Folk] gives a human face to magic in medieval and early modern England, bringing us closer than ever to the hopes, dreams and aspirations of both clients and practitioners
History Today
Tabitha Stanmore’s engaging new social history of magic . . . full of such magical tips and colourful vignettes . . . She’s clearly a sharp reader of social realities, and sometimes offers clear-eyed social assessments of why magical rituals had real-world consequences . . . the result is this cheerful, colourful compendium of stories, which crackles with incident
Financial Times
Illuminating… Cunning Folk shows us that our forebears were seeking answers through the tools they had
Spectator
Spirited and richly detailed … With hundreds of colourful incidents drawn from legal records, court chronicles and contemporary accounts, Stanmore hopscotches through history, exploring the uses to which cunning folk were put
New York Times
This is a fascinating book, clearly written and illuminating about the psychological necessity of magical thought
Literary Review
A fascinating and intricately researched book that opens a window into another world
Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I
The best introduction to late medieval and early modern popular magic yet written ... Comprehensive, humane, lively, and a great read
Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch
This isn't just a book: it's a window on the hopes, passions and lives of Europe five centuries ago. We know the horror film version of magic. Tabitha Stanmore - uncovering a whole treasure house of long-lost private lives - adds the rich, fresh, human version
Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World

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