Læce - Ways of the Healer
While the name Læce (pronounced similarly to the modern English word ‘leech’ with a short ‘eh’ on the end; leech-eh) tends to remind us of the wee blood-sucking worm, the two words are actually very unlikely to be related. Even though medieval-through-current medical procedures rely on the leech worm for a variety of issues, we have no confident linguistic connection between the worm and the healer. I’ve seen folks online try to connect these terms via the practice of leeching and also as a slam on folkloric healers ‘leeching’ money off unsuspecting clients- but both are unfounded in research.
So, what is a læce, and what do they have to do with the ways of Wortcunning?
First and foremost, the Læce in all their various expressions, many of which we will cover below, was and still is healer. While later perspectives in England and in other places conflated the cunning artes with malefic witchcraft, we know this not to be true. Many of the primary functions of all cunningfolk were to reverse harm done and protect from future harm caused by malefic witchcraft practitioners. Læcecræft, the practice of leeching, is one of healing and the restation of rightness within the person.
This word, sacred as it is to me, comes from the lexicon of Old English which was spoken by the Anglo-Saxon folk of England during the medieval era; roughly the 5th-11th centuries. The Anglo-Saxons came to the British Isles from Germany and brought with them their culture, language, art, worldview, and religion.
Within all Anglo-Saxon communities both before and after settling in the area we now call England, the Læce would have been a crucial member of society- one who knew the plants, charms, rituals, and apotropaic measures of hælu, health. Because the Læce healer was a vocational expression of the Anglo-Saxon people, they would have been practicing their artes with a very specific worldview and goal which can sometimes be quite different than our own today. Some of the most influential things I think about include:
Animism - Heathen folk were (and are) radically animist and choose to intentionally navigate a world full of non-human persons and complex relationships through mindset, ritual, taboos, and observances of sacred dates.
Location - The climate, landscape, weather patterns, plants, animals, and existing land-based folklore.
Cosmology - Who humans are, why we’re here, what our role in the grand scheme of things is, how we’re connected to others, and what our virtuous actions are.
Disease / Unhælu - How non-human persons, disharmony, and relationships influence our ability to be hælu, healthy, and what to do when things go awry.
Influence & Syncretism - Even in the earliest centuries of the medieval era the Anglo-Saxons had access to shared healing wisdom from the Mediterranean, North Africa, Continental Europe, and other Indo-European child cultures that had evolved separately from their own Germanic roots.
Kinship - The kinds of personal relationships of power that the Læce and the folk had with kings, Gods and Goddesses, heroes, and so forth would have been a strong influence in how they showed up in the world and understood the ways of healing
Now that we have a little understanding about this word, where it comes from, and who used it, I would like to explore several ways that Læcecræft has manifested over the centuries. Some of these expressions may seem very out of place here- but I wanted to make room for all traditions and expressions that were either influenced by or influential on wortcunning- or both! This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are certainly nuances that have been omitted here due to brevity and scope- but the topic is so fascinating and one I really enjoy thinking about.
The Læce
Healers of the Anglo-Saxon Pagan communities, these folk were in possession of the countless folk remedies, recipes, rituals, charms, taboos, and observances of their artes. We know little about how they were trained or what their average day at work looked like, but we know from documents scribed in the 10th and 11th centuries a great deal about how they practiced Læcecræft.
These healers were practicing the most Pagan, animist, and Anglo-Saxon expression of the medicinal artes as we know it- and I consider them to be the roots of all modern Wortcunning; which is based on the wisdom they passed on to us now.
Visionary Medicine
What many call Shamanism, I like to call visionary in respect for the specific traditions that we are not part of for whom that term is sacred. The term shaman has become a catch-all in the modern age and I think that’s a real disservice to the people who inspired anthropologists with the term to begin with. We don’t need to co-opt that term; there aren’t Celtic Shamans or Irish Shamans or Plant Shamans (in a European context)- the Celts, Irish, and all other Indo-European traditions have their own terms for visionary people. If you’re interested in this subject mater, seek out the people who are reviving and adoring those terms- you’ll likely be in very good hands.
Everything we know about plants from the world before clinical analysis comes from visionary experiences. Folks of old who took time to connect with the spirits of the plants, explore them, dream with them, taste them, and journey with them in flights of spirit are the roots of all modern plant wisdom worldwide. Before laboratories, how else could we learn? By watching plants, seeing the animals that interacted with them, tasting and smelling them, journeying to them with the subtle aspects of self such as the fæcce and hama.
From spirit-to-spirit connections we evolved the specific cultural nuances and rituals that helped us to embody and share the green wisdom received.
Cunning Folk
As Christianity gained footing in England and surrounding areas, traditional Læcecræft transformed into the cunning artes. These masters of syncretism blended ancient Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, imported, and Christian elements to create a tapestry of healing that is at once stunningly beautiful and shockingly pluralistic. We tend to think of the coming of Christianity to Pagan lands as being a stark end to one era and beginning to another, but at least as far as Wortcunning is concerned, there was far more mixing and mingling than anything else.
The cunning person could easily employ an herbal remedy from the Læce tradition paired with the recitation of a specific Psalm with a bioregional folkloric land ritual- all into one powerful rite which would have generally been preserved in a grimoire or grammar- the prized possession of the healer. We know that many cunning healers gained their wisdom and power directly from the books they came into possession of- each one doing things their own way.
Sorcery
I can’t talk about Læcecræft without mentioning sorcery! Here's an example of a wide array of various animist traditions focused on spirit-work and navigating relationships for magic and healing. Sorcery is an example of a collective of traditions that was heavily influenced by both Wortcunning in the British Isles and occult wisdom from many other places. Another example of what animist syncretism can look like when done with respect.
Witchcraft
Early connotations of witchcraft in the British Isles were always malefic, with the exception of later distinctions between ‘white’ or ‘good’ witches with their more nefarious counterparts. We see in all cunning lore the need to fiercely protect one’s self from witches and their antics. One of my favorite charms against witches is specific to helping someone find out who stole their shirt… seems like a silly thing to hire a cunning person for, until we recognize that many people at this time only had one shirt!
Witchcraft absorbs much Wortcunning lore over the ages, especially as it relates to the deeper spiritual aspects of local plants. Over the years as I’ve studied the various plant lore texts that come out around witchcraft I tend to see the same material presented over and over again; a mixture of Mediterranean lore (which would be mostly irrelevant to the locale), Wortcunning lore, wisdom from the Alchemical and Hermetic traditions, and others. A great deal of the material in modern books on herbal witchcraft present plants that most of us will never meet and cannot grow- and a great many of them never grew in the lands where witchcraft evolved.
We must be mindful as we change and evolve what witchcraft is today- recognizing what it once was so that we can let it become all it is capable of now.
A short exploration of the healing folk of the Pagan past- and I hope an intuitive insight into how we can catch their wisdom here and now!
This is just the beginning of this conversation- for more, check out this free class…
References & Resources
Popular Magic - Cunning Folk in English History | Owen Davies
Cunning Folk & Familiar Spirits | Emma Wilby
Pagan Britain | Ronald Hutton
Leechcraft | Stephen Pollington
Travels through Middle Earth | Alaric Albertsson
