I wouldn't presume to comment on the situation in Slav
communities, or indeed anywhere in Eastern Europe,
which seeems to be very rich in material, but also
very complicated, and which I frankly know nothing
about. But in Britain over the past 1000 years or so I
think there is every indication that people who
practiced magic were members of the Christian church
(Catholic or Protestant according to the period they
lived), and that they used Christian words and imagery
in their rituals. I don't know enough about High
Ceremonial Magic to know if any of its medieval or
Tudor practitioners invoked Zeus or Aphrodite or
Osiris etc, but at the 'folk' level I see no obvious
traces of any memory of Celtic, Germanic, or Roman
gods. Modern Neo-pagans who want to claim that there
were such traces have to resort to very speculative
reconstructions.

You mention fairies. How do the Slavs fit fairies into
their cosmological and religious world-view? Here in
the West there are two widespread legends which seek
to link them into the Bible schema: (a) they are the
'Hidden Children of Eve', or (b) they were 'neutral'
angels who refused to take sides in the war between
Satan and Michael. [I can recount these legends, if
anyone wants them.] 

There is some material in witch-trials, especially
Scottish, suggesting that some of our healers too
'learned from fairies', but since the trial evidence
is always slanted in the direction of
'fairies=demons', we can't safely work out how the
accused woman herself thought of them.

Jacqueline




--- Endymion <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ----- 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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