What is Wortcunning?
Herbwise is the modern translation for the ancient term wortcunning I’ve been using for many years now. I know that old term isn’t the most romantic looking for a lot of people, but it holds so much power! In this post, I’d like to explore one of my favorite questions: what is wortcunning? We’ll explore the rich history of the term as it applies to specific people and places, what the two words that make this term up actually mean, and how it can look as a vocational practice in the modern world. I hope you’ll get a lot out of this brief share and get inspired to consider the ways in which plant spirit medicine have been honored by our herbwise ancestors since forever. Let’s get into it!
By now you likely know that I am obsessed with etymology. I love the history of words, how we came to call things what we call them, and especially how we name specific plants. One of my favorite things about the practice of wortcunning is what’s hidden in the name. Wortcunning is a compound word made up of two individual words: wort and cunning.
Wort comes from the Old English Wyrt which simply means a plant, usually medicinal or nutritional, that folks are in some kind of relationship with. The Wyrts are the plants we know, interact with, and bring in to medicine, food, and ritual. This word, wyrt, has its own linguistic roots that go back many thousands of years to the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European lanuage where *wrad is defined as a plant, branch, or root.
Cunning comes from the Old English cunnan, to know, and is rooted in the ancient reconstructed prefix *gno-, to know.
So, when we put these two terms together we come up with a word which means ‘to know the plants’. This knowledge includes everyday things like names, identification, scents, tastes, culinary uses, and medicinal applications, but it also includes the deeper sense of knowing- the revelation of green mysteries to the sincere seeker. One who is wortcunning is someone to whom the plants have reveled their secrets- and that person applies that knowing in service of the whole.
At its core, wortcunning is a practical arte and craft- one that is intended to being harmony, healing, protection, and spiritual power to the folks one one’s community. The wortcunner of old England would have learned from a mentor, honed their skills over years of practice, worked had to earn the kinship of plants, Elves, and Deities, then applied all of that in service of their community in a number of ways.
They acted as diagnostician, herbalist, medicine maker, charm reciter, storyteller, wisdom keeper, experimenter, and so much more- all through the specific green ways of the plants.
Folks in a community could seek the support of their local cunning person for everything from a spider bite to a broken bone, a search for love to finding a lost item (and perhaps who stole that item!). The false separation between what is medicinal and what is magical did not exist even juts a couple of hundred years back. For the wortcunner, acts of medicine and magic drew power from the same well of wisdom.
Here are a few of many points explaining what wortcunning is:
Wortcunning is a vocation in service of community based on being called by the plants, their stewards, and the community itself. Ancient cunning practices were always self-regulating. If a person wasn’t effective, they lost their title and accolade.
The cunning artes are rooted in ancient animist, earth-centered ways, what we nowdays call Pagan. While cunningfolk in early modern England, for example, would have been just as likely to recite a Psalm or The Lord’s Prayer over an herbal remedy, the practice itself is pre-Christian. Wisdom and power were accepted regardless of their source. If something worked, that was enough affirmation to continue using it.
Wortcunners were taught by someone who was already established as a respected practitioner. In later times, they may have also learned from books, grammars, grimoires, black books, and so on.
Folks involved in working with plants in these ways were in personal relationship with those plants. The herbs gathered would have been local and easy to identify, harvest, and craft into medicine. The stories around the herbs would have served a mnemonic purpose in the individual’s ongoing education. The person would have also been eager to learn directly from the plant spirits via an array of secret means.
Folks seeking the support of a wortcunner would have been able to bring any and all issues to the table. There was no restriction on things needing to be physical.
Early on, the cunning artes would have been wrapped up in the specific spiritual traditions of where it was being practiced. The lore of the land, deities, nature spirits, myths and legends, sacred cycles, and the like would all have added texture and nuance to the way the wortcunner would have practiced their craft.
For the modern practitioner of wortcunning, we must search wide to find sources that preserve ancestral wisdom and the folk ways of herbal magic and medicine- but they’re out there! Luckily, we have several texts we can rely on to have a peek into what the cunning artes have been and what they could be now. Three of my favorites were penned around the 10th century in England and represent the most important sources in my practice. These manuscripts include Lacnunga, Bald’s Leechbook, and The Old English Herbarium V. They contain a great deal of herbal wisdom in the form of botany, charms, diagnostics and assessments, recipes, applications, and more. Additionally, many manuscripts exist from areas outside the Anglo-Saxon world including Iceland and Scandinavia which contain a great deal of herbal wisdom- the AM434a of Iceland being one of my favorites.
While no unbroken lineage of cunning folk working with herbs exists from even a thousand years back until now, we have enough material to work with to construct a vibrant, effective, and meaningful path of the green artes in the modern day. I have spent 25 years studying and exploring the various wild paths of herbal medicine and magic, and can confidently say that if the will to engage with the plants in ways that resemble our ancestors is there, one can find success.
While I am a traditionally-trained clinical herbalist, I am a wortcunner in practice. I rely on the texts, lore, and practices of my ancestors to inform how I do and what I do. The plants I have access to are nearly infinite thanks to global shipping and the internet, but my own apothecary is mostly stocked with the plants rooted in the lore of the Pagan folk of old. The ways in which I assess healing needs is also deeply informed by what has been handed down over the ages. I also rely heavily on my own relationship with the plant spirits- many years dedicated to learning about them from others and more importantly directly via journey, meditation, contemplation, experimentation, and kinship.
Modern wortcunning brings a depth of herbal wisdom that is second to none. All cultures across time have their ancestral ways of working with plants to create harmony- this is the one that works for me.
