Hidden like Viking gold under the landscape there is a rich body of nearly lost folkwitch tradition hiding in plain sight on the internet. Particularly in the 18th and 19th century antiquarians, folklorists and ethnologists documented the rural and occasionally urban folk beliefs of practically all of the UK and much of Europe. Organizations like the Folklore Society, founded in 1878, were created to help catalog and publish this body of collected ethnological data. A vast repository of a spectrum of witch and cunning craft practices.
Below are a list of links to various sources on the internet. The non Abramhamic roots of British folk traditions date from an era of Celtic settlers, and thus much of the spirit tradition concerns beings we now collectively call “fairies”, though their origins and nature differ greatly.
Books Available Online for free:
Folklore Society/Folk-Lore Journal:
Over 100 publications made by the Folk-Lore Society can be found on Archive.org. Unfortunately these are mostly unsorted, although they represent a massive amount of folkwitch information. Particularly in the realm of curses, hexes, salves, second sight, and boundary magic.
I will be launching a separate blog dedicated to delving into the contents of the Folklore Society’s publications in the next few weeks. In the meantime - Happy digging: Link to archive of FOLKLORE JOURNAL
Books whose content focuses on first-hand accounts of folk traditions, alpha by author. (* denotes particularly important titles)
Richard Blakeborough
- Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire (1898)
J G Campbell
- Witchcraft & Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1902)
- Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, Collected entirely from Oral Sources (1900)*
Edward Clodd
- Tom Tit Tot - an essay on savage philosophy in folk-tale (1898)
Oswald Cockayne
- Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England (1864)
Thomas Crofton Croker
- Fairies Tales and Legends of the South of Ireland (1834)*
John Graham Dalyell
- The Darker Superstitions of Scotland (1834)*
Walter Evans-Wentz
- The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (1911)
Richard Folkard
- Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics (1892)
W. Gregor
- Notes on the Folklore of the North East of Scotland (1881)
Lady Gregory
- Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (1920)*
William Henderson
- Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (1866)*
Thomas Keightley
- The Fairy Mythology (1828)
Robert Kirk
- The Secret Commonwealth (1893, written 1691)*
Fiona Macleod (William Sharp)
- Where the Forest Murmurs (Nature Essays) 1906
James Napier
- Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within this Century (1879)*
Sir Walter Scot
- Letters on Witchcraft and Demonology (1884)
- The Existence of Evil Spirits Proved (1843)
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe
- A Historical Account of the belief in Witchcraft in Scotland (1884)
Wirt Sikes
- British Goblins Welsh Folklore fairy mythology legends and traditions (1880)
Eve Simpson
- Folklore in Lowland Scotland (1908)
Benjamin Thorpe
-Northern Mythology, Comprising the Principal Popular Traditions and Superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Lady Wilde
- Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland *
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Thomas Wilkie
- Old Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs of the Inhabitants of the Southern Counties of Scotland (1916)
(History Of The Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club Vol 23 1916-18, pages 50-145)
Suggested books that are unfortunately in copyright or otherwise not currently available online:
(Links to goodreads and worldcat.org)
Katharine Briggs
- The Anatomy of Puck (1959)*
- Pale Hecate’s Team (1962)*
- Fairies in English Tradition and Literature (1967)
Thomas Davidson
- Rowan Tree and Red Thread (1949)
George Ewart Evans
- The Pattern Under the Plow (1971)*
- Ask the Fellow Who Cuts the Hay (1965)
- The Crooked Scythe
Harold Hansen
- The Witch’s Garden (1978)
DA Mac Manus
-The Middle Kingdom (1959)*
Emma Wilby
- Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic (2005)*
- The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland (2010)
C. L. Zalewski
- Herbs in Magic and Alchemy: Techniques From Ancient Herbal Lore (1990)
Frederika Bain
- The Binding of the Fairies: Four Spells (2012)
Thomas Forbes
- Witch’s Milk and Witches’ Marks (link to pdf)*
(Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, XXII 1950)
Fae Honeybell
- Cunning Folk and Wizards In Early Modern England (2010) (link to pdf)
Canon J. A. Macculloch
- The Mingling of Fairy and Witch Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Scotland
(Folk-Lore/Volume 32/1921)
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