Cunning folk

Cunning folk, also known as folk healers or (more rarely) as white witches, are practitioners of folk medicine, folk magic, and divination within the context of the various traditions of folklore in Christian Europe (from at least the 15th up until at least the early 20th century).

Names given to folk healers or magicians in parts of Europe include the French devins-guérisseurs and leveurs de sorts, the Italian benandanti ("good walkers"), the Dutch toverdokters or duivelbanners, the German Hexenmeister or Kräuterhexen, the Spanish curanderos, the Portuguese curandeiros/as, benzedeiros/as or mulheres de virtude (this last one applies only to females, translating as "women of virtue"), the Danish kloge folk, Swedish klok gumma ("wise old woman") or klok gubbe ("wise old man"), and the Slavic Vedmak. Some historians and folklorists have opted to apply the term "cunning folk" as an umbrella term for the entire range of the phenomenon.

Scandinavia

In Scandinavia the klok gumma ("wise woman") or klok gubbe ("wise man"), and collectively De kloka ("The Wise ones"), as they were known in Swedish, were usually elder members of the community who acted as folk healers and midwives as well as using folk magic such as magic rhymes. In Denmark, they were called klog mand ("wise man") and klog kone ("wise woman") and collectively as kloge folk ("wise folk").