Wortcunning

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

The knowledge of the use of herbs in healing, both medicinally and magically. Hedge Witches, Wiccans, Pagans, Wise Men and Women, Cunningmen and women all had wortcunning, as do many of today's Witches.

Many of the healers and magical practitioners grew their own plants for healing and magical use, but others felt it was more important to find the plant growing in the wild.

The harvesting was frequently done according to the phases of the moon or by the Planetary Hours and the Planetary Rulers, depending upon the need and the use of the plant. The herbs were usually cut with a boleen, a curved-bladed knife used only for that purpose. They could be used fresh or dried for future use.

Mentioned in

Weatherworking

References in periodicals archive

Leechdoms, wortcunning, and starcraft of early England, vol.

THE STATUS OF OLD ENGLISH DARE REVISITED

"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" does not start with the opening lines of Beowulf the poem, but instead with the Reverend Oswald Cockayne--best known for his three-volume Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England.

"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" seventy-five years later

Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, vol.

Corporeal anxiety in Soul and Body II

Cockayne, Leechdome, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols (London, 1864-6), I, 378.

Old English rot in place-names

Feminine forms are often used to describe the sun's motion, as in Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft:

A solution to riddle 72 in the Exeter Book

"Lacnunga." Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England Being a Collection of Documents, for the Most Part Never Before Printed, Illustrating the History of Science in This Country Before the Norman Conquest.

Dwarves, spiders, and murky woods: J.R.R. Tolkien's wonderful web of words

Thus, Bodley Homilies and Vespasian Homilies have no in-Phs in the 11760 words of the texts and Peri Didaxeon, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England includes only 8 instances in its 7350 words (0.1088%), whereas Juliane and Katherine (The Katherine Group) incorporate 131 tokens (81+54) in the 12110 words (7180+4930) of the texts, with the rate of 1.0817.

The Middle English preposition in: a semantic analysis (1)

See also Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols., coll.

Changing senses in Genesis B

Balfour, EETS 137 (London, 1909), 110, and Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, ed.

Beowulf 1495: hwil daeges = momentum temporis?

New York: Dover, 1958), 160; by Oswald Cockagne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England (London: Longman, 1864-1866), 1:395; by G.

The Art of Beekeeping Meets the Arts of Grammar: A Gloss of "Columcille's Circle"

Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols (London, 1864-6), ii.34.

The remedies in British Library MS Cotton Galba A.xiv, fos 139 and 136r