Cunning Folk

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

A fascinating and intricately researched book that opens a window into another world

Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I

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

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

I adore Cunning Folk. A truly fascinating and human book

Ruth Goodman, author of The Domestic Revolution

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

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

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

Kate Maltby, Financial Times

Illuminating… Cunning Folk shows us that our forebears were seeking answers through the tools they had

Spectator

An entertaining history of everyday magic in the Middle Ages … charming … packed with anecdotes … Stanmore takes pains to correct many misperceptions about the period [and] persuasively argues that their stories provide a window on the everyday life of premodern Europeans that proves more intimate than other forms of history

Slate

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

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

Rich and lively

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

This is a fascinating book, clearly written and illuminating about the psychological necessity of magical thought

Literary Review