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"How do you know she's a witch?": Witches, cunning folk, and competition in Denmark
Western Folklore, Summer 2000 by Tangherlini, Timothy R
As her reputation as a "witch"--or at least as a cunning person who frequently used magic--grew, Ane's initially large customer base began to dwindle, a clear indication that a reputation for witchcraft could damage business (Rorbye 1976: 29). In Kristensen's collections, one finds numerous stories that could easily be deployed in contributing to a cunning person's developing reputation as a witch. For example, Peder Stampe from Dejbjaerg tells the following story:
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Niels Knudsen in Lem, who is dead now, he went and asked my father to come by many times. But he didn't want to go over there since he'd heard talk that Niels Knudsen was somewhat cunning and could witch. He kept trying anyway and said, "You should come over to me, then I'll teach you how to shoot so you'll never miss." But my father didn't dare. One day he was out hunting and came by there. Then a hare came out of Niels Knudsen's cabbage patch, there was a hole in the wall and it came out of that. It kept on running in front of him and looking back at him, and he didn't dare shoot it, since he believed that it was Niels Knudsen himself or some other supernatural hare (Kristensen 1980 [1892-1901], vol. 6: 306).
In another account, a cunning person is saved from the Devil whom he has called to him by another cunning person:
A cunning man in Sonderha sat at the end of his table and couldn't go anywhere since he had a visit from the Evil One, who he'd called to himself, and to get rid of him he sent for Hans Plovmand from Skyum. But he said that there wasn't any hurry. Let him be afflicted with him a little bit. Finally he came and drove him away. "Now I've saved you two times, but if he comes a third time, then there's no way in Hell that I can save you." (Kristensen 1980(1892-1901), vol. 6: 110).
Any negative evaluations of the abilities or allegiances of a particular cunning man or woman such as one finds in these accounts could be deployed by rivals to drive away potential customers (and presumably drive them to the doorstep of another cunning man or woman). In the second story, it could be simultaneously be used to attract customers to the more competent cunning man Hans Plovmand.
Not all cunning folk fought developing a reputation for witchcraft. Niels Mikkelsen, for example, actively sowed the seeds of ambivalence in his local community.33 According to Rorbye,
The Helmdrup smith was also interested in witchcraft. After he came home after being out practicing, and people asked him what he'd been doing, he would gladly answer-I've been out witching-- But why do you answer like that when you don't believe in witches yourself? his neighbor asked him once-Well, when I say things like that, people don't ask any more and then I don't have to give long explanations... A great deal suggests that Niels Mikkelsen was not as dismissive of witchcraft as the exchange of words with his neighbor might have us believe.. When he got angry...he would threaten to bewitch people (Rorbye 1976: 125-6).
In the seventeenth century, a flippant answer such as the one Mikkelsen provides could have easily become the grounds for a court case and his subsequent immolation. As such, it reveals the profound change in attitudes towards using the appellation "witch" over the course of several hundred years. Furthermore, Mikkelsen's answer and his actions underscore the close relationship between cunning and witchcraft, a relationship that cunning folk in the seventeenth century had studiously avoided.34
