----- Original Message -----
From: "jacqueline simpson" <[log in to unmask]>
> Dale wrote a few days ago asking whether he was right
> in thinking some of the Cunning Folk were Christian.
What does make one Christian?
The Cunning-Folk in Serbia and among the South Slavs in general are quite
impossible to narrow into one category. It is interesting to see how the
Cunning-Folk started to practice their cunning at the first place. Some of
them are taught within the family, while other claim that their knowledge
came from some higher force, usually fairies and saints. In the stories of
some Cunning-Folk, they say that the fairies or saints appeared to them
while they were ill, usually when they were quite young. They believe that
the fairies and saints give them life and health, though they are bound to
the fairies and saints in order that they may charm and heal people. Often,
the stories follow a theme wherein the Cunning-Folk are taken to some wild
place, a forest or mountain, by fairies where they are shown the secrets of
healing. Other Cunning-Folk say they meet fairies and saints in dreams. Not
listening to the orders given them in dreams leads to punishment.
As for the Cunning-Folk and the Church, while the Church expresses visible
intolerance towards charming and Cunning-Folk, the Cunning-Folk justify
their charming as being benign by citing the use of pieces of the rituals
and texts of the Church within their charms. Some cunning-folk even use
crosses in combination with their charms. Not all Cunning-Folk go to Church,
and those who don't go to church often explain that they don't go because
they occasionally do sinful things; but others claim that fairies won't let
them enter the church. Some Cunning-Folk, together with likeminded people,
form circles of worship in the fields or forest, conducting rituals in
accordance with the circle of the year, saying that they are following an
order that came to them in dream.
Matters get even more complicated when one includes "rusalje", "vilarke" and
similar in the category of the Cunning-Folk. These women fall into some kind
of trance, where they communicate with fairies in order to bring healing for
those who got ill after the "elf-shot".
Andrija
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