Witchcraft

== Witchcraft and folk healers ==
{{Main|Cunning folk}}
[[File:Diorama of a Cunning Woman in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.jpg|thumb|[[Diorama]] of a cunning woman or wise woman in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic]]
Most societies that have believed in harmful or [[black magic|black]] magic have also believed in helpful magic. Some have called it [[white magic]], at least in more recent times.{{r|HuttonFear|p=24-25}} Where belief in harmful magic exists, its use is typically forbidden by law as well as hated and feared by the general populace, while helpful "[[white magic|white]]" or [[Apotropaic magic|apotropaic]] magic is tolerated or even accepted wholesale by the population, even if the orthodox establishment opposes it.<ref name=HuttonArthur>{{Cite book |last=Hutton |first=Ronald |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QqPbJQkSo8EC&q=alleged+practices+witchcraft&pg=PA203 |title=Witches, Druids and King Arthur |date=2006 |publisher=[[A&C Black]] |isbn=978-1852855550 |location=London|language=en |access-date=2020-11-22 |archive-date=2021-07-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718192634/https://books.google.com/books?id=QqPbJQkSo8EC&q=alleged+practices+witchcraft&pg=PA203 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|203}}

In these societies, practitioners of helpful magic, usually known as [[cunning folk]], have traditionally{{Clarify timeframe|date=October 2023}} provided services such as breaking the effects of witchcraft, [[Traditional medicine|healing]], [[divination]], finding lost or stolen goods, and [[love magic]].{{r|HuttonFear|p=x-xi}} In Britain, and some other parts of Europe, they were commonly known as [[Cunning folk in Britain|cunning folk]] or wise people.{{r|HuttonFear|p=x-xi}} Alan McFarlane wrote that while cunning folk is the usual name, some are also known as 'blessers' or 'wizards', but might also be known as 'white', 'good', or 'unbinding witches'.<ref name=Macfarlane>{{Cite book |last=Macfarlane |first=Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lmfuwq0mQMUC&pg=PA130 |title=Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study |year= 1999 |publisher=Psychology Press |page=130 |isbn=978-0415196123 }}</ref> Historian [[Owen Davies (historian)|Owen Davies]] says the term "white witch" was rarely used before the 20th century.{{r|DaviesPopular|page=xiii}}  Ronald Hutton uses the general term "service magicians".{{r|HuttonFear|p=x-xi}} Often these people were involved in identifying alleged witches.{{r|HuttonFear|p=24-25}}

Such helpful magic-workers "were normally contrasted with the witch who practiced ''maleficium''—that is, magic used for harmful ends".<ref name=Willis>{{cite book |last1=Willis |first1=Deborah |title=Malevolent Nurture: Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England |date=2018 |publisher=Cornell University Press}}</ref>{{rp|p=27-28}} In the early years of the witch hunts "the cunning folk were widely tolerated by church, state and general populace".{{r|Willis|p=27-28}} Some of the more hostile churchmen and secular authorities tried to smear folk-healers and magic-workers by falsely branding them 'witches' and associating them with harmful 'witchcraft',{{r|HuttonFear|p=x-xi}} but generally the masses did not accept this and continued to make use of their services.<ref>Ole Peter Grell and Robert W. Scribner (2002). Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge University Press. p. 45. "Not all the stereotypes created by elites were capable of popular reception ... The most interesting example concerns cunning folk, whom secular and religious authorities consistently sought to associate with negative stereotypes of superstition or witchcraft. This proved no deterrent to their activities or to the positive evaluation in the popular mind of what they had to offer."</ref> The English [[Member of parliament|MP]] and skeptic [[Reginald Scot]] sought to disprove magic and witchcraft, writing in ''[[The Discoverie of Witchcraft]]'' (1584), "At this day, it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch' or 'she is a wise woman'".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Scot |first=Reginald |title=The Discoverie of Witchcraft |date=1584 |volume=Booke V |chapter=Chapter 9 |author-link=Reginald Scot}}</ref> Historian [[Keith Thomas (historian)|Keith Thomas]] adds "Nevertheless, it is possible to isolate that kind of 'witchcraft' which involved the employment (or presumed employment) of some occult means of doing harm to other people in a way which was generally disapproved of. In this sense the belief in witchcraft can be defined as the attribution of misfortune to occult human agency".{{r|Thomas|p=519}}
 
[[Emma Wilby]] says folk magicians in Europe were viewed ambivalently by communities, and were considered as capable of harming as of healing,<ref name="Wilby">Wilby, Emma (2006) ''[[Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits]]''.</ref>{{rp|p=51–54}} which could lead to their being accused as malevolent witches. She suggests some English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons may have been cunning folk whose supposed [[fairy]] [[familiar spirit|familiar]]s had been [[Demonization|demonised]].{{r|Wilby|p=123}}

[[Ronald Hutton|Hutton]] says that healers and cunning folk "were sometimes denounced as witches, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused in any area studied".{{r|HuttonFear|p=24-25}} Likewise, [[Owen Davies (historian)|Davies]] says "relatively few cunning-folk were prosecuted under secular statutes for witchcraft" and were dealt with more leniently than alleged witches. The [[Constitutio Criminalis Carolina]] (1532) of the [[Holy Roman Empire]], and the Danish Witchcraft Act of 1617, stated that workers of folk magic should be dealt with differently from witches.{{r|DaviesPopular|page=164}} It was suggested by [[Richard Horsley]] that cunning folk ({{Lang|fr|devins-guerisseurs}}, 'diviner-healers') made up a significant proportion of those tried for witchcraft in France and Switzerland, but more recent surveys conclude that they made up less than 2% of the accused.{{r|DaviesPopular|page=167}} However, [[Éva Pócs]] says that half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers,{{r|Pocs|p=12}} and Kathleen Stokker says the "vast majority" of Norway's accused witches were folk healers.<ref name="Stokker">{{cite book |last1=Stokker |first1=Kathleen |title=Remedies and Rituals: Folk Medicine in Norway and the New Land |date=2007 |publisher=Minnesota Historical Society Press |location=St. Paul, MN |isbn=978-0873517508 |pages=81–82 |quote=Supernatural healing of the sort practiced by Inger Roed and Lisbet Nypan, known as ''signeri'', played a role in the vast majority of Norway's 263 documented witch trials. In trial after trial, accused 'witches' came forward and freely testified about their healing methods, telling about the salves they made and the ''bønner'' (prayers) they read over them to enhance their potency.}}</ref>