Cunning Folk

22/09/2023

Look who has arrived!

Thank you for your patience as our small team work to get out hundreds of pre-orders.

If you haven't already, buy a copy via our online shop: https://cunning-folk.com/shop/the-vampire-issue-pre-order

19/09/2023

We're 10 days away from the next full moon. Here's how to celebrate the Harvest Moon Festival, or "Korean Thanksgiving."

We’re fast approaching the Harvest Moon, which this year falls on 29th September. This date holds particular significance for my husband and I as a couple, but it’s also an important festival in the South Korean calendar, where it is called Chuseok, meaning Autumn Eve. The festival is thought to...

05/09/2023

Get in the mood for the Vampire Issue with the Vampire Issue playlist.

Listen to the Vampire Issue playlist on Spotify . Pre-order a copy of the Vampire issue via our online shop . Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne.

01/09/2023

COVER REVEAL

Pre-order the Vampire Issue via the link in our bio.

This entire issue is illustrated by our art director Kaitlynn Copithorne.

Expected fulfilment: October/November, in time for the thinning veil 🦇🐈‍⬛🍂

*Important: please note we are unable to fulfil orders for this with back issues of the Fire or Water issues. Please order these items separately. Cover illustration by Kaitlynn Copithorne Size: 170mm w x 240mm h This is a pre-order. Expected fulfilment: October/November

04/07/2023

Why think in terms of water, fire, earth, and air?

Read our brief and non-prescriptive introduction to elemental magic.

Humanity has long sought to understand the world by dividing it into its constituents parts. In the same way that scientists now recognise atoms as the building blocks of everything, and protons and neutrons as the building blocks of atoms, thinkers have also recognised that various elements constit

24/06/2023

Long overdue newsletter to be sent out soon.

Have you subscribed?

Cunning Folk Email Forms

04/06/2023

Missed out on the Water or Fire issue?

We're doing a reprint! Pre-order now to secure a copy.

02/05/2023

Cunning Folk is 4 years' old (how?!) – read our recent diary entry, including musings on lockdown, disenchantment, the problems facing indie press and the response to our op-ed on toxic masculinity and the occult.

We have been pretty terrible at keeping up this part of the website. It was intended as a place for unstructured musings, a public diary, blog and newsletter-adjacent. Three years later here’s out third diary update – better late than never. Belated, but happy Beltane from us! Cunning Folk is no

11/04/2023

Last chance to snag a copy of our fifth issue!

We're down to our last 9 copies of the Earth issue, featuring words from/interviews with Silvia Federici, Anna Walsh, Professor Diane Purkiss, Ella Duffy and Dr Elizabeth Dearnley, among others. We have no immediate plans to reprint.

Cover illustration by Natasa Jovanic Size: 170mm w x 240mm h

07/04/2023

"[Ronald] Hutton’s work was inspiring but also freeing. It showed there was no one great and authentic coven or spiritual group that preserved, exclusively, the secret knowledge of the ancient past. There was no one truth more powerful than all others. Instead there were a variety of different schools of thoughts that allowed practitioners to explore their inner and outer worlds. There was the potential for creativity, freedom and a breakdown of the hierarchies and rigid thinking that made so many people leave mainstream religion.

With this in mind, I wonder sometimes about the people who speak loudly and smugly on Twitter about doing “the great work”, while scoffing at others with “less authentic” practices. They are not exclusively on Twitter, nor new. They existed back when I was four years old and living in a retreat centre frequented by many spiritual practitioners. Such people typically belittle people who take up the occult casually, or during certain times of need."

One of the highlights of my five years in London was volunteering at an occult bookshop in Bloomsbury called Treadwell’s. The shop hardly needs an introduction. Christina Oakley-Harrington, the “Treadwell’s founder and presiding spirit”, has changed the way people view the occult. Formerly a...

28/02/2023

Are we going through a period of Re-enchantment?

The short answer is no. But it's a little more complicated than that.

Read our take below.

Three years after our Re-enchantment issue, the term Re-enchantment is a buzzword. Every week we’re seeing articles, books, events, and festivals using the word as if it were synonymous with self-improvement through nature, and connecting with childhood wonder. Often, at its most diluted, the term...

12/11/2022

We are closing our web shop for the whole month of December.

Order before the 28th of November to ensure fulfilment before the holidays.

PLEASE NOTE: we are currently working through pre-orders. New orders will not be dispatched until after 6th November. Cover illustration by Natasa Jovanic Size: 170mm w x 240mm h

05/11/2022

We are open to submissions/pitches again! Read on for more on our current theme.

To send us a review copy, please reach us at [email protected] We won’t ask for review copies unless we intend to interview the author/feature the book in some way.

02/11/2022

I’ve got writing in two new books out this season. SPIRITUS MUNDI is an anthology of writing derived from mystical methods, and so I wrote “Invocation to Iris,” a lyric essay of sorts about the Greek goddess of rainbows. It’s one of the weirdest, most personal, and most magical pieces of writing I’ve ever done, and I’m super proud of it. Thank you to and for inviting me to be part of this stunning tome, alongside so many wondrous writers. 🌈📕🌈 I also had the great if somewhat daunting honor of writing the foreword for the new reprint of Gerald Gardner’s classic text, THE MEANING OF WITCHCRAFT. It’s a book written in 1959 by “The Father of Wicca” as he’s now called, and it’s a book that by today’s standards is problematic for a myriad of reasons and fuzzy on historical accuracy, while also being moving, inspiring, funny (Gerald was quite salty when he wanted to be!), and deeply influential to the generations of witches who came afterward, whether they realize it or not. I did my best to offer both critique and context, while still giving him the flowers I believe he deserves. I don’t use the word Wiccan to describe myself (and frankly neither did Gerald), but I know I would not be here doing this work without his pioneering perspective on magic and the power of the witch, and so I was humbled and grateful to be given this opportunity. Thank you to for her encouragement and great support on this. 🧙‍♂️📗🧙

SPIRITUS MUNDI is out now, and the new edition of THE MEANING OF WITCHCRAFT is out on Dec 1. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed getting to contribute to their pages. 📚💫

24/10/2022

Edinburgh folk: this season is magical--channel some of that cusp energy and join us for an evening of séance and ritual on the 29th at Argonaut Books

This comes after a full house at Treadwell's Books in London earlier in the month.

Join Argonaut Books and Cunning Folk for the launch of the highly anticipated Earth Issue.

19/09/2022

Listen to the Earth Issue playlist.

Listen to the Earth Issue playlist on Spotify. Pre-order a copy of the Earth issue via our online shop . Illustration © Kaitlynn Copithorne.

13/09/2022

The Earth Issue of Cunning Folk is now available to pre-order!

Returning to our roots, with a cover from Re-Enchantment issue illustrator Natasa Jovanic.

Important: This is a pre-order. Expected fulfilment: October/November 2022 PLEASE NOTE: the Earth issue must be ordered separately to Air issue. We are unable to hold the Air issue until the Earth issue order fulfilment. Any orders placed for both will be cancelled. Cover illustration by Na

09/08/2022

Deeply honoured and grateful to receive such a beautiful and thoughtful review in our inbox from reader Katie Metcalfe. You've made our week!

I was depressed and suicidal when the debut issue of Cunning Folk emerged a few years ago. I wanted it badly. But I didn’t buy it. It was around £15 or so, with the postage and…

03/08/2022

Our web shop is back open after a wee working holiday!

07/07/2022

We're having a wee break until August. To get Cunning Folk earlier, order before Monday. Any later orders will be fulfilled in August.

https://www.cunning-folk.com/shop/the-air-issue-pre-order

Cover illustration by Katy Horan Size: 170mm w x 240mm h