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Cunning Murrell (James Murrell: Folk Magician; "Hedge Wizard")

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TheQuixote

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I have had a trawl through Search and haven't come across any references to Cunning Murrell


From 1812 to 1860 Hadleigh was the home of James Murrell, the last and most famous witch-doctor in Essex.

Born the seventh son of a seventh son, he was known as 'Cunning Murrell', and enjoyed a lucrative career as a white magician.

His equipment included a magic mirror for discovering lost or stolen property, a telescope for looking through walls and a copper charm which could distinguish between honest and dishonest clients.

Murrell often said he was 'the Devil's Master', claiming that he had the power to exorcise spirits and overcome witchcraft by counter-spells. He was well known for his iron witch bottles, into which he put samples of the blood, urine, nails and hair of clients whom he had diagnosed as bewitched.

At midnight, the mixture would be heated to boiling point in absolute silence, the object being to create a burning sensation in the witch's body which would force her to remove the spell.

One story relates how a girl was brought to him, barking like a dog after being cursed by a gypsy woman. When Murrell heated up his witch bottle that night, it exploded and the next day the charred body of a woman was found lying in a nearby country lane.

A secretive man, Murrell travelled only at night, and always carried an umbrella with him regardless of the weather. On December 15, 1860, the day before he died, Murrell accurately predicted the time of his death to the minute. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Hadleigh churchyard.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/essex/features/halloween/witchdoctor.shtml



This is an interesting page on various Cunning folk that also includes a paragraph on Murrell:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/5871/cunningfolk.html

Witchbottles on the FTMB.

I also have a copy of the fictional book Cunning Murrell by Arthur Morrison (it's next to the Harrison Ainsworth on my shelf) quite an interesting read.
 
Quixote: Oooooooo good stuff - this looks to be an interesting paper if anyone is interested in ordering it up:

"Cunning Murrell, A Study of a Nineteenth-Century Cunning Man in Hadleigh, Essex" by Eric Maple, Folklore, March 1960

from one of the above links:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/5871/cunningfolk.html

And a couple of more general books:

White Magic and the Cunning Folk
by Karen O'Brien (2002)
The Bluecoat Press
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1872568866/

Cunning-folk: Popular Magic in English History
by Owen Davies (2003)
Hambledon and London Ltd
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1852852976/
 
Cheers for the links Emps!

I'm stuck at the moment trying to track down whether or not some of Murrell's equipment and apparatus are still in existence to this day.

Murrell's books included works on astrology and astronomy, tables of ascensions, many seventeenth century medical books, and anatomical plates, and were seen and described by an Arthur Morrison, who had examined them seventy years prior to the writing of Maple's article. There were several unbound, homemade books on conjuration, geomancy, and astrology. The last still survived at the time of the visit to Hadleigh made by Maple, who examined it and found it to be 'a scrapbook of astrological data ranging from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century.' The original keeper of the book was one 'Neboad,' whose handwriting was succeeded by Murrell's.

Among Murrell's magical instruments found after his death were a 'trick' telescope which enabled him to see through brick walls, a crystal, a mirror, a bowl of water, and a copper charm with which he could distinguish the true man from the liar.
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taken from this page (which references Eric Maple's study):

http://www.conjurefolk.com/murrell.html

I'm sure they are- whether being held by a museum or private collector.
 
Quixote: As he died in 1860 then my guess would be that their location is mentioned by Maple in his Folklore paper but you'd need to get the paper.

This site lists other publications by the same author (the first one we know about of course) which may or may not be of interest (but it looks like they were researching that general field around that time):

Maple, Eric, "Cunning Murrell: A Study of a Nineteenth-Century Cunning Man in Hadleigh, Essex", Folklore Vol. 71 (March 1960): 37 - 43

-----------, "The Witches of Canewdon", Folklore Vol. 71 (December 1960): 241 - 250

-----------, The Dark World of Witches, Castle Books, New York, 1964
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http://members.aol.com/gryffin5/kelly.htm

Also if you are summoning forth interlibrray loans the page numbers of the Arthur Morrison piece are 433-442 info from:

http://www.geocities.com/cnamuncura/mmag.html

Another link:

http://www.pharo.com/paranormal/cunning_murrel/articles/pacm_00a_the_devils_master.asp
 
You sir have much patience in finding nuggets from The Strand and I thank you for that.
 
Fascinating.

Wiki said:
No images of Murrell survive. Accounts describe him as a short man who walked with his hands behind his back and hummed as he went. He was also noted for wearing a hard hat, bobbed tale coat, and iron goggles, while carrying a whalebone umbrella and a basket into which he placed the herbs that he collected.His appearance reportedly scared local children, of whom he was nevertheless fond[/Wiki]
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I’ve just started getting into the Cunning Folk. Murrell and George Pickinghall (?). Given the amount of occult/paranormal study I did in my formative years I am surprised that I only recently learned of the Cunning Men and Women, especially as the well known ones appeared to be active not far from where I have lived for the last 40 years.
I think the subject could make a damn fine podcast, but at present I’m downloading books and stuff off the internet to get to know a little more about these folk.
 
Tempest63 said:
I’ve just started getting into the Cunning Folk. Murrell and George Pickinghall (?). Given the amount of occult/paranormal study I did in my formative years I am surprised that I only recently learned of the Cunning Men and Women, especially as the well known ones appeared to be active not far from where I have lived for the last 40 years.
I think the subject could make a damn fine podcast, but at present I’m downloading books and stuff off the internet to get to know a little more about these folk.
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I've known about the subject for a while now but there's not a lot out there. Please feel free to share any of your findings.

I'm fairly sure it must run in my family as my great, great grandparents used to look after the dead in their local village.
 
Naughty_Felid said:
I've known about the subject for a while now but there's not a lot out there. Please feel free to share any of your findings.

I'm fairly sure it must run in my family as my great, great grandparents used to look after the dead in their local village.
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I’ve found a resource here
https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-cunnin...-english-folk-magic-1550-1900-e187804653.html
where the Cunning Mans Handbook is available to download for free, a saving of £7.99 on the kindle ebook on Amazon.
There are other associated books available at the same resource.

What has truly piqued my curiosity is something I read about either Murrell or Pickinghall being responsible for the Golden Dawn rituals, something I cannot really get my head around.
Also I picked up somewhere that Murrell was a member of the same group of Covens that Gerald Gardner belonged to, yet there was a rumour that Crowley assisted in the preparation of the Gardner rituals. I have long believed that Gardner invented the whole backstory to his coven which therefore made a mockery of the the whole resurgent Gardnerian/Alexandrian Wicca movement.
 
Coincidence? Saturday I post about The Cunning Men, and George Pickingill, Monday Episode 156 of Lore is titled “Bottled Up” and includes content on Canewdon Village in Essex, James Murrell and...George Pickingill.
How Bizzare!
 
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