HKA-001608Practice
Christian Prayers Used in Cunning Practice
A record in The Hawthorn Archive, preserving folklore with its place, type and source context attached.
Archive record
English cunning practice could make extensive use of Christian material. Prayers, biblical passages, crosses, divine names and invocations of sacred authority appear alongside divination, astrology and protective charms.
This evidence complicates the modern idea that cunning folk belonged to a single surviving pre-Christian religion. Christian language could be used in ways that clergy nevertheless regarded as superstitious or improper.
Source trail: Jim Baker’s study of English cunning magic, 1550–1900, and Owen Davies’ research on cunning folk.
Related Journal record: Cunning Folk in England.
Catalogue reference HKA-001608
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