When Issobell Sinclair admitted she had talked to fairies as she tried to protect cattle from harm on Hallowe'en with a sheet and some hair, she sealed her fate. The Scottish woman was hanged as a witch soon after her trial in 1633. But just a century earlier she might have gone unharmed, even wmoticed. For Isoobell was following a path that thousands of men and women had taken for centuries. White witches, also called cunning or wise folk, had been an integral part of many God fearing communities since Roman times. They made cures, gave advice and offered protection to people and their livelihoods. But as organised religion changed and fear of witchcraft spread in the 16th and 17th centuries, the thin line between their practices and the darker arts of black witchcraft: blurred and soon the places they had once called home were no place for the ghoul next door.
Magic was so widely piactised in Tudor England that leadingcommunities, inspiring both respect and fear. And in an age when science could offer little explanation for anything, their wisdom held power.
