Cunning As Folk.

I’ve just begun to reread a book which I was given as a gift several years ago, the excellent Troublesome Things by the lovely and talented scholar and author Diane Purkiss of Keble College, Oxford.

I cannot recall what prompted me to pick it up once more but I was sufficiently enthused to have a look around the BBC Radio 4 website - the Listen Again facility of which is one of the main reasons for which I maintain an internet connection - and I was delighted to discover an excellent episode of Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time to which she contributed as a lively and very useful guest on the very subject of fairies which may make exceedingly entertaining Elevenses listening for any interested parties.

One of the other pieces I found on the Radio 4 site was a short interview on Woman‘s Hour, a discussion on male witches and cunning men. It may be thought that a witch is a witch is a witch, but what with everyone and their aunt’s dog describing themselves as a witch these days perhaps it would be better consider the term witch as an honourific bestowed by others. Witch and cunning man both imply wisdom and ability but when each of these consist of nothing more than the same practices, misinformation and alleged spells which anyone can obtain from their nearest bookshop then in what sense is any of this to be considered either wise or able? What is it about a person that allows them to think that they are the peers of those men and women whose names are part of folklore? The ability to swish around in crushed velvet, dye their hair and buy crappy magic wands from websites? It would perhaps be a better state of affairs if people were noted for their obvious common sense, their obvious achievements, their obvious good works for friends, strangers and family in their community, their obvious knowledge of folklore and history than for their brags about alleged abilities to do things which might be considered magical or out of the ordinary that are in the overwhelming majority of cases, frankly, the entirely unwarranted power fantasies of impotent, attention-seeking, feckless people too lazy to get off their backsides, open books, get themselves an education and get involved in the world.

If the title of witch is to be used at all by pagans about one another - and this is by no means a given considering its traditional meaning - then it should not be used trivially, as is the case now.