Wortcunning & Hedge Witchcraft
The arcane craft of plant lore and magical healing has evolved significantly over centuries, from the earthy wisdom of medieval cunning folk to the personalized spirituality of the modern hedgewitch. This blog post offers a scholarly comparison between wortcunning—the traditional English practice of herbal magic—and contemporary hedgewitchery, focusing on their cosmologies, methods, and cultural roles. Though both systems draw on deep knowledge of the natural world, their approaches reflect differing worldviews, social contexts, and relationships with modernity.
What Is Wortcunning?
The term wortcunning derives from the Old English wyrt (plant or herb) and cunnan (to know), meaning “plant knowledge” or “herbal wisdom.” In historical contexts, wortcunners were often the rural cunning folk of England—practitioners of folk medicine and magic who provided healing, protection, and divination in their communities. These individuals operated outside formal religious and medical institutions, drawing on oral tradition, local folklore, and experiential knowledge.
Characteristics of Traditional Wortcunning:
Empirical herbalism: Cunning folk understood the properties of plants based on tradition and trial, applying remedies for both physical and spiritual ailments.
Animistic worldview: Plants and natural elements were seen as imbued with spirits or virtues. The collection of herbs often involved ritualized actions and astrological timing.
Christian syncretism: Many cunning practices were blended with Christian motifs (e.g., using the Lord’s Prayer alongside charms).
Community-centered: Wortcunning served the needs of local villages—often focusing on healing, charms, finding lost items, and countering witchcraft.
Primary sources such as the 17th-century trial records of cunning folk (e.g., Bessie Dunlop, Mother Shipton) and texts like The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) by Reginald Scot provide insight into the complex status of wortcunners—sometimes feared, often respected, and occasionally persecuted.
What Is Modern Hedgewitchery?
Hedgewitchery is a modern, often solitary, magical tradition that emphasizes connection to nature, spiritual autonomy, and intuitive practices. While inspired by historical witchcraft and folk traditions—including wortcunning—it reflects post-20th-century neo-pagan and Wiccan developments. The “hedge” in hedgewitchery refers to the symbolic boundary between worlds: the mundane and the spiritual, the wild and the cultivated.
Core Characteristics of Hedgewitchery:
Intuitive herbalism: While informed by science and folklore, hedgewitches often prioritize intuitive or experiential relationships with plants and spirits.
Eclectic spirituality: Influences include Wicca, shamanism, animism, and Goddess traditions. Deities may be invoked, but are not always central.
Path of the solitary: Hedgewitches typically practice alone, often outside formal traditions or covens.
Spirit flight and hedge-riding: Many engage in trance, journeying, or dreamwork to access otherworldly wisdom, echoing shamanic practices.
Environmental consciousness: Modern hedgewitches are often engaged in ecological ethics, permaculture, and plant activism.
While wortcunning was deeply embedded in the communal and religious life of pre-modern Europe, hedgewitchery flourishes in an era of individualism and information abundance. Both represent modes of relating to the plant world as something more than botanical—they see plants as partners in healing, revelation, and magic.
Continuities and Revivals
Despite their differences, modern hedgewitches often look to wortcunning as an ancestral precedent. The resurgence of interest in plant lore, traditional healing, and “green witchcraft” reveals a desire to reconnect with older ways of knowing. This revival, however, often romanticizes the past—forgetting that cunning folk worked within difficult and dangerous conditions, often persecuted by both Church and State.
Still, the emphasis on ethical wildcrafting, herbal medicine, and the spiritual significance of plants suggests a thread of continuity. Hedgewitches may not serve their villages in the same way, but they often act as stewards of folk knowledge, ecological consciousness, and personal transformation.
The transition from traditional wortcunning to modern hedgewitchery reflects broader shifts in cosmology, culture, and identity. Wortcunning, rooted in communal service and Christian folk belief, provided practical and spiritual care in a localized world. Hedgewitchery, shaped by postmodern spirituality and ecological urgency, offers a personalized, mystical path through the natural world. In both, we find a reverence for the green world—a recognition that plants are not just ingredients or resources, but allies in the journey between seen and unseen realms.
