Wortcunning in the Modern World
The term wortcunning originates from Old English and is a combination of two important words: wort and cunning. Each of these individual words speaks volumes about how I approach my work with the plants- and they infer a great deal about how my ancestors did the same.
Wort, which is by no means the most romantic sounding word, comes from the Old English wyrt which generally refers to a plant or herb, particularly one with an establish connection to medicine and lore. It is related to similar words in other Germanic languages, such as wurzel in German meaning "root." Our next word, cunning, is also from the Old English (and is thus rooted in the Proto-Indo-European language tree) where it means knowledge, skill, and expertise. It’s important to note here that in the common vernacular, the word cunning has taken on some negative connotations such as being used to describe someone who is tricky, duplicitous, or manipulative. These negative associations are new and aren’t connected to the ancient origins of the word.
Wrapping it all up, we see that wortcunning means the wisdom and skillfull application of plants in medicine, magic, ritual, and lore. Thus, a wortcunner would be someone who possessed this wisdom and the skills around it. I’ll take this opportunity to note that, especially in ancient applications, a title like wortcunner would not be given lightly, nor would it be self-prescribed. Rather, only someone who was doing wortcunning and being wortcunner would be given this title organically by their respective community. The efficacy of one’s knowledge of plants and their work with those plants would self-regulate through the accolade afforded them by their people.
While the name wortcunning may only be as old as its emergence from Indo-European language roots, the practice and path is timeless. We have plenty of lore that attests to the ancient nature of plant work- and surviving lore affirms that the traditions of wortcunning have been around and evolving since forever.
In early wortcunning ways, the ones we can peek at through grimoires, folk tales, recipes, rituals, taboos, and the like, there are some commonalities we can use to consider what the practices, paths, and people might have looked like.
First, we have to release the overly theatrical, ultra complex influences of many ceremonial magic traditions and contemporary romances on the past. It is extremely unlikely that our ancient herbwise ancestors had access to broadswords for casting circles, were ordering exotic herbs off Amazon, or had a surplus of candles, jars, and other accoutrements. Also, they would absolutely not have referred to themselves as witches or seen what they were doing as any iteration of witchcraft, at all, period. Read the exceptional works of Emma Wilby, Owen Davies, Stephen Pollington, and Clause Lecouteux for more on this topic.
This means that wortcunning folk were simple, used what they had access to, and centered their work on the plants that grew within walking distance almost exclusively. They did not have a lot of ability to preserve large amounts of dried herbs, nor was it necessary. As trade routes opened, they likely encountered and worked with some non-native plants; but this was a rare exception to the rule as these imported plants would have come at a price.
Wortcunners were local folk who were both chosen and trained by their predecessors to serve their respective communities with their accumulated herbal wisdom. They did this in the form of both herbal medicine and herbal magic- both things which would not have been romanticized in the way they are now nor considered to be separate in any way. Their learning of herbs was necessarily hands-in-the-hedge. The only way to learn was to be taught by someone who knew and to have profound personal experiences with the plants through various practices. Until the passing around of grimoires and grammars, it would have been unthinkable that even the most ‘outer court’ herbal wisdom would have been written down. These were (and many places around the world still are) initiatory traditions that are handed down from teacher to disciple in ways that go beyond just the cerebral learning.
The experiences of individual wortcunners, wise women, pellars, and herbwise folk would have compounded with experience, been shared amongst them when possible, and handed down, almost exclusively orally. This means that as the people and the communities and the world changed, the information was able to adapt.
While we can’t, with any accuracy, say that the ancient wortcunning practices have somehow survived in an unbroken stream of power from then until now, we can confidently say that many of the traditions, approaches, perspectives, and experiences of our herbwise ancestors have stood the test of time and made it into the present moment. We can thank a variety of sources for this, namely folkloric tales and the documents written by paranoid witch hunters who inadvertently preserved much of the lore they were so adamantly against. As many scholars and practitioners have done, we can piece together fundamentals and pour them as a healing liqueur into the chalice of the present moment to see what shape, color, flavor, and aroma they might embody.
In my work, wortcunning means the same thing it always has: the secret wisdom of the plants applied in practical ways in service of harmony. It also means that we rely heavily on whatever plant lore exists from our ancestors both near this moment and as far away from it as we can get- both through the stories and writings they’ve left and by working with them directly in ritual contexts. As a fiercely animist path, the cunning artes affirm that the herbwise wortcunning folk of old still live on in the realms of otherness and can be access by the adept with an open heart and the right evocations of spirit.
Wortcunning, for me, also means some big differences. I don’t live in the same place my deep ancestors lived and I have privileges and technologies they didn’t have. The plants within walking distance of me- the ones I am most inclined to know deeply and win allyship- are both native to the lands I call home and nativised due to their cosmopolitan nature or prized beauty, aroma, flavor, or medicine. I also have access to herbs from around the world; I don’t necessarily work with those herbs, but I can. I also have the ability to work with farms hundreds of miles from me to ensure that my community clinic stays stocked with herbs all year long without me having to either grow or wildcraft that large amount of plant material.
All of that being said, wortcunning in my work looks exactly the way I think it should based on where it came from and how we’ve changed as people and cultures over time and place. While the externals may seem different, the deep heart of the work is the same- and is something I am confident our herbwise ancestors would recognize once they got past the shocking trauma of airplanes and smart phones!
At the end of the day the work continues to be about cultivating deep, personal relationships with the plants- learning from them and co-creating with them, in service of the greater good. The plants remain our most valuable teachers- nobody knows more about plants than plants! We also lean heavily into the teachings of our ancestors and any current practicing cunningfolk we can sit with.
While I have many names for the work I do, wortcunning continues to be the one that means the most!
To learn more about wortcunning, spiritual herbalism, and the ways of plant spirit work, I invite you to join me at The Green Arte school…
