Cunning Folk Magic
Most recorded Cunning folk were Christian to one degree or another. Some cunning folk were priests, others were committed, regular church goers, and others seldom went to church at all, but there is no evidence that they were pagans in the sense of worshiping ancient gods. Cunning folk in general did not worry about how their magic worked; the important thing to them and their community is that people thought it did. Of course, some of the practices and spell craft used by the cunning folk may have had ancient roots, but the original pagan beliefs that went alongside the use of old charms were long gone, and they did not use a shamanic trance during treatment. In fact, the spells they used were medieval Christian folk magic, which frequently called on the names of God, Jesus, Mary and the saints. After the Reformation, this meant Cunning folk were often accused of being Roman Catholics, with good reason; this is the only persecuted old religion they called on. Up to the Stuart period some did claim to have learned their powers from the fairies, but this concept died out later. Cunning folk were as busy as ever by the mid eighteenth century, when religious tolerance in Britain ensured that professed atheists as well as Roman Catholics could openly admit their beliefs without danger; indeed, some eccentrics did claim to worship Classical deities. There was little reason to hide pagan beliefs any more, which seems to indicate the Cunning folk did not have any. Thus, it seems that the minority of modern Christian Wiccans involved in The Craft are among the few with a valid claim to having a longstanding traditional heritage.