The Cunning Craft

The Cunning Craft: A Tortuous Path of the Wise Art
Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold
ISBN 978-1-959883-93-7
Crossed Crow Books
$24.95

In The Cunning Craft, de Mattos Frisvold focuses on the art of cunning, that is, practical magic of a traditional, pre-Wiccan style. He considered writing the book without mentioning Witchcraft at all, but settled for filtering out anything modern or religious in a Pagan way and writing about the craft that remains. He opens by defining what a Cunning One is from a historical standpoint through analysis of various texts from the Early Modern Period and Late Middle Ages. He provides the same treatment to the crossroads and the role of the devil in a craft which from its inception was fundamentally a rebellion against a world dominated by Christianity. While this analysis overlaps with Nigel Pennick’s work, fans of that author who find themselves wishing for more explicit instructions will be pleased to find that in later chapters, de Mattos Frisvold includes rites and invocations for readers to use in their own practices.

He repeatedly brings up the concepts of Witch blood, elven blood and Witches’ descent from fallen angels, an evocative and charming, if unlikely, conceit common among Traditional Witchcraft practitioners. In discussing these ideas, de Mattos Frisvold returns again and again to the fundamental otherness of the Witch. This sense of otherness is not frequently discussed in a modern pagan culture that prefers to highlight community, but is nonetheless a common experience among magical practitioners, and the open discussion of it sets this text apart from others.

Despite his open hostility toward Wicca and the modern Pagan movement, readers of any religious or magical persuasion can learn quite a great deal from de Mattos Frisvold’s thoughtful presentation of the roles of crossroads, the devil, the Moon and Venus in traditional forms of magic. The Cunning Craft offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking guide to the history and practice of the cunning art that any reader interested in the historical roots of Witchcraft will find worthwhile.