Cunning Women 🔮
This week, we're checking out an Anglo-Saxon grave and some mysterious goods ...
Hello to you, lovely readers 👋🏻
Are you still feeling the magical, Halloween-y, autumnal vibes? 🎃
I hope so.
Last time, things were very witch hunt-y around here and today, I want to go further back in time. Let’s go to a time before broomsticks and covens and sex with the devil …to a time before persecution. Let’s go and meet the cunning folk of Anglo-Saxon England.
Today, the word “cunning” is inseparable from “deception” but that hasn’t always been the case. As you can see here 👇🏻 “cunning” once described the possession of knowledge:
The question is: what was this knowledge that cunning folk possessed?
Well, in the early Anglo-Saxon period and before Christianisation, cunning people were probably shamans (or the earlier equivalents of priests). They used their knowledge to heal the sick, divine the future, provide guidance and act as a mediator between the physical and spiritual worlds.
Exactly how this knowledge was passed down remains a mystery. I read once that the Druids - the priests and priestesses of the Celtic world - learned knowledge through oral repetition in a process that took 12 years. That’s some dedication, eh?
Anyway, however this happened, it is probable that every community (no matter how big or small) had its own cunning person. And there is evidence that many of these cunning people were, in fact, women.
If cunning folk didn’t write things down, what kind of evidence are we talking about, I hear you ask?
Excellent question. Have yourself a gold star ⭐
Well, in 2004, an archaeologist called Tania Dickinson was examining the contents of an excavated grave from Bidford on Avon in Warwickshire. In this grave was the skeleton of a young woman (probably between 18 and 25 years old) who had died around the year 550. She was positioned on her back with her head turned to one side. She was dressed as you might expect for a woman of this era: she wore a peplos (long gown) that was fastened into place with two brooches. Nothing unusual there, right?
But …
This woman had been buried with some curious objects. A whole load of them, in fact, prompting Tania Dickinson to say: “the odd mixture of amulets and junk may be both the stock-in-trade and sign of women possessed of special powers.” In other words, Dickinson believes this to be the grave of a cunning woman.
Let’s have a look at some of these amulets and bits of ‘junk:’
First up is a bucket pendant. She was found with about a dozen of these:
There was also this gorgeous bronze ‘spangle.’ This is another type of pendant:
And this assortment of bronze cylinders:
Her grave also contained a leather bib, 39 amber and glass beads, a very unusual knife that looks almost like a scalpel, as well as a long, decorated bone handle.
Interpreting grave goods is no mean feat. How can we really know the significance of these items to the person who owned them? We aren’t even sure how some of them were used.
But one thing is clear: this woman’s grave stands out. It’s not your run-of-the-mill stuff. But other ‘cunning’ graves are now being identified across England, so the Bidford woman wasn’t an isolated case.
And now I leave it in your capable hands: what do you think?
Until next time,
Kaye x
P.S. For an extra history fix:
🖤 Check out some other Anglo-Saxon cunning women's graves from the village of Scremby.
🖤 Have a read of this 10th-century health charm.
🖤 Jessikah Inaba has just made herstory by becoming the UK’s first Black and blind barrister.