Spirited and richly detailed ... With hundreds of colorful incidents drawn from legal records, court chronicles and contemporary accounts, Stanmore hopscotches through history ... One limitation of this lively book, acknowledged by its author, is that it’s hard to quantify how many of the cunning folk’s bread-twirlings, spells and gewgaws produced the desired results.
Charming ... Stanmore takes pains to correct many misperceptions about the period ... Regardless of the nature of the cunning folk’s powers, Stanmore persuasively argues that their stories provide a window on the everyday life of premodern Europeans that proves more intimate than other forms of history
Interesting parallels between cunning folk, nineteenth-century spiritualists, the popular book, The Secret, and TikTokers espousing the 369 Manifestation Technique round out an insightful book about medieval life and the power of belief.
