give them a list of names of people whom they suspected of having stolen their property, and from which they would use various forms of divination to come to a conclusion regarding who was the guilty party, or alternately they would get their client to scry with a reflective surface such as a mirror, crystal ball, piece of glass or bowl of water, and then allow them to see an image of the culprit themselves. according to historian owen davies, this was an "alternative, less risky strategy" than divination or astrology because it allowed the client to confirm "their own suspicions without cunning-folk having to name someone explicitly." other techniques could be described by today's standards as psychological or even downright deceptive. cunning folk might use these methods to "intimidate the guilty" or "prompt their clients into identifying criminal suspects"; for example cunning woman alice west would hide in a closet near the front door and eavesdrop on small-talk before greeting a client, then upon meeting the client she would explain that already knew their business because the fairies told her. the concept of cunning folk locating criminals using magical means concerned some people in power in england, and there are records from london in the fourteenth century showing that certain cunning folk themselves were brought to trial because of their accusations against other members of the community: for instance, in 1382 a cunning man named robert berewold was brought to court after accusing a woman named johanna wolsy of stealing a drinking bowl from a house in st mildred poultry. in the trial, it emerged that berewold had come to his conclusion through a form of divination known as "turning the loaf" where a wooden peg was stuck into the top of a loaf of bread with four knives then stuck into the sides. a list of names would then be spoken, and according to the theory, the loaf would supposedly turn when the name of the thief was spoken. berewold was found guilty of making unsubstantiated and damaging claims, and punished in the pillory. healing a variety of herbs and other floral ingredients that british cunning folk used in preparing potions and other healing concoctions. the cunning folk were widely visited for aid in healing various ailments for both humans and their livestock, particularly from poorer members of the community who could not afford the fees charged by apothecaries and physicians. records indicate that the cunning folk used a wide variety of different methods to cure their clients, "from the simply laying on of hands to the use of elaborate rituals." in 1846, the chelmsford chronicle reported that an ill young man, that physians had been unable to help, followed the advice of a cunning woman who resided between the epping forest and ongar, essex to cure his illness: "that a small nut should be cut in twain, the kernel extracted, and a live spider placed in the shell, which was to be sewn up in a bag and worn round his neck, and as the spider wasted, so would the fever leave him." at times, they would use various herbs and plants to develop medicines and folk cures that they believed would help. at other times, they employed more overtly magical means, such as the use of charms and prayers, which were usually very much christian in nature, commonly invoking the power of the christian trinity to heal the sick. in keeping with this christian basis, sometimes religious objects like holy water, candle wax or eucharist wafers were used in healing. on occasion, live animals would be used as a part of the treatment, for instance in 1604, the northumberland cunning women katherine thompson and anne nevelson were convicted by a court for placing a duck's beak to a woman's mouth whilst reciting charms as a form of healing. cunning folk at times were also known to offer abortions, usually via a poisonous potion that would kill the foetus, but there were cases where the potion also made the pregnant woman very ill. other services british cunning folk would also often be involved in love magic, offering services pertaining to sex and relationships. one form of this was a form of fortune telling where they would divine the name or appearance of a client's future lover, often using palmistry, scrying or astrology. another popular practice of the cunning folk was the casting of spells or charms to ensure a spouse's fidelity, preventing them from committing adultery; for instance, a cunning man from newcastle upon tyne, peter banks, was charged in 1673–74 with offering to draw up a magical contract which would bind a husband to staying loyal to his wife for a year. some cunning folk claimed to have the ability to locate treasure, and at times were employed by people in this capacity. in some of these cases it was believed that a supernatural entity, such as a demon, spirit or fairy, was guarding the hidden treasure, and that a cunning practitioner was needed to overcome them using magical means. there were also claims that certain cunning folk occasionally performed bewitching or cursing for a fee, which under some definitions would make them witches as well as cunning people. the folklorist eric maple, after examining several 19th-century cunning folk in essex, noted that one of them, george pickingill, also performed cursing for clients, but that the other whom he examined, james murrell, considered it immoral and so did not. indeed, other essex cunning folk were associated with witchcraft, notably in the village of sible hedingham, where there lived an elderly french cunning man who had previously had his tongue cut out, and was consequently dumb, as well as being deaf. as a result he was known as "dummy" in the local community, who generally disliked him, largely because of his 'otherness' in being both foreign and disabled, and rumours spread that he was a witch who would curse them. in 1863 a drunken mob attacked him, throwing him in a river to see if he would sink or float (a traditional method of identifying a witch, who it was believed would float, whereas an innocent would sink), but the resulting shock killed the elderly man, who was in his eighties. another notable case of a cunning person performing cursing and malevolent witchcraft comes from nineteenth-century norwich, where a wise woman who went by the pseudonym of "virtue" used to demand gifts from her neighbours, threatening them with cursing if they refused. magical beliefs and praxes as historian willem de blécort noted, "the different services the provided did not form part of an overall 'magic' system". indeed, whilst the magical practices of the cunning folk were typically folk magical in content, there were also those who dabbled in ceremonial magic, or "high magic", based primarily on what they had gleaned from books of magic, or grimoires. spellcasting and charms the cunning folk often produced written charms for their clients, which would be used in many ways, such as to protect from witchcraft or to help procure love. these typically contained a series of words that were believed to have magical powers, and which were commonly drawn either from grimoires or from the bible. these might be produced on paper, which was the cheaper option, or, in certain cases, parchment, which according to certain magical texts should have been made from the skin of a virgin or unborn calf. "most written charms contained a strong religious content", typically invoking various names of god (such as elohim, adonai, tetragrammaton etc) or of his angels to help the particular charm to be effective. in some cases they quoted whole sections from the bible, sometimes in either latin, greek or hebrew rather than the vernacular english. or they used "magic" words, such as "abracadabra" or the palindrome "sator arepo tenet opera rotas". such charms were then sometimes sewn into a bag, or placed within a bottle, and either carried about by the client or placed somewhere in their home. in the 19th century, a ritual known as the toad bone rite became popular, particularly in east anglia but also in other areas of the country, amongst both cunning folk and members of magical organizations such as the scottish society of the horseman's word and the east anglian society of horsemen. originally based upon an ancient southern european magical practice documented by pliny, it had later been purported in the works of cornelius agrippa and reginald scot, which were read by several literate cunning folk. although there were many variations, the ritual typically involved the killing of a toad or frog, having its flesh stripped from the bones by ants, and then throwing the bone into a stream at night. it was believed that this would grant the practitioner, who was known as a toad man, the ability to perform certain magical tasks. grimoires an amulet design contained within the black pullet grimoire. when printed books on the occult, particularly in the english language, had begun to be produced, some cunning folk obtained, and used, grimoires, or books of magic. in many cases they made a big show of the fact that they owned such tomes, which would have appeared impressive in the minds of many of their customers in a period where only a minority of people were able to read and write in britain. indeed, some cunning folk appeared to own these grimoires purely for cosmetic reasons, to impress their clients, and did not actually make use of any of the magical rituals contained within them. whilst grimoires had been around in europe since the ancient period, and many new grimoires had been produced during the medieval, they had remained highly expensive and hand written items that the average person would not have had access to. in the early modern period, this began to change as the invention of printing allowed grimoires to be produced in greater quantities; initially this had primarily been in languages other than english, particularly latin, but in the mid-sixteenth century, english translations of albertus magnus' book of secrets were produced, whilst the printing of english-language grimoires increased in the seventeenth century. another significant grimoire to be published in english was james freake's translation of cornelius agrippa's three books of occult philosophy, which "must have generated a good deal of interest among and other less well-educated magical practitioners at the time." equally popular was the english astrologer robert turner's translation of the fourth book of occult philosophy (1655), which was erroneously attributed to having been written by agrippa. however, perhaps "the most influential vehicle for the dissemination of high magic to a wider audience was, in fact, reginald scot's discoverie of witchcraft", a book first published in the early seventeenth century in which scot condemned the cunning folk as liars and tricksters, but in which he had also provided a wide variety of talismans, charms and rituals as examples of what the cunning folk and ceremonial magicians used and performed. this book was subsequently republished on several occasions, and copies were obtained by a wide variety of cunning craft practitioners who used the information in the work to enhance their own magical praxes. familiar spirits and fairyland some cunning folk were said to employ supernatural entities known as familiar spirits to aid them in their practice of magic. these spirits, which were also believed to work for witches as well, are referenced in many of the witch trial records from the early modern period. after examining these accounts, historian emma wilby noted how in the descriptions given of familiar spirits by both cunning folk and those accused of witchcraft, there was "a pervading sense of naturalism", with most familiars resembling "relatively ordinary humans or animals with only slight, if any, visual anomalies." for instance, folklorist eric maple noted that in the english region of east anglia during the latter nineteenth century, it was commonly thought that familiar spirits, which were often referred to as "imps" in that region, took the form of white mice. there were however some exceptions to these naturalistic familiars, for instance a woman in cambridgeshire was believed to have a familiar spirit that was a cross between a frog and a rat. a late sixteenth-century english illustration of a witch