We are fortunate that many of the ways and practices, with regard to traditional West Country ritual, charms and working items, have survived and have evolved within the work of individual practitioners of Traditional persuasion who have had a continued and active presence in the West Country. Notably, a rich corpus of lore, tradition, ritual, belief, and magical practices for the provision of healing, the reversal of ill fortune, the lifting of ill wishing, the exorcism of troublesome spirits, the conjuration of helpful spirits, the ways to make divinations and indeed the dark ways of blasting had been gathered and preserved by the founder of the Museum of Witchcraft – Cecil Williamson. A practitioner, devoted collector and researcher of occult and magical practices, as a result of direct childhood encounters with Witchcraft, Cecil Williamson maintained a particularly strong interest in the old magic of his native West Country, resulting in his collection containing a vast array of artefacts relating directly to the Traditional Craft in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. Cecil was certainly a practitioner of magic himself who was not at all fond of the modern Craft of Wicca, preferring the results-based Craft of ‘the Wayside Witch’, which he viewed as vital to the small communities in which these ways operated. Cecil is believed to have encountered and received teaching from some eighty two Traditional Wise Women.

Written charms of some age for healing still exist in Cornwall, that must be passed from woman to man and vice versa, a tradition that is still observed and continued (all be it a rarity) in the present day. Here the possession of the charm and the ability to work it are passed on in a ‘lineage of Cunning’ that spans an unknown length of time. The ways of the Cornish Pellar were passed on in small and rare associations and apprentice-like relationships. Others took up their Craft, entirely alone via intuition with the aid of established local tradition and available magical texts. One may be born with the ‘inclination’ and combine the known local lore surrounding charms and folk magics, with the rites and ways contained in the well known magical texts and grimoires that were known to have been available to 19thC practitioners via mail order. The notion that Cunning Folk of the past would have been entirely illiterate is a complete fallacy, as evidenced by their fondness for written charms and their known use of afore-mentioned magical texts.

We have suggestions of Cornish 'Witch Cults' operating in the potent area of the Rocky Valley, North Cornwall, where the enigmatic labyrinth carvings, discovered in 1948 can be found. Formerly believed to date from the Bronze Age, they are now thought to be no earlier than the 17thC and perhaps put in place by the Rocky Valley Witches themselves. Other rumors still linger of secretive Pellar groups, such as the ‘Lizard Pellar Cult’ a grouping of practitioners said to be engaged in working with the highly potent serpentine forces of Cornwall’s Lizard peninsular.

Such groupings, and lose associations of Traditional practitioners – very few and far between, and highly secretive – would have enabled certain ways, lore and gnosis to be preserved and continued amongst its fellows. However, it must always be remembered that traditional practitioners in Cornwall, and across Britain were, and are, predominantly always solitary practitioners, whether or not they also hold association with local ‘Hearths’, 'Families', Lodges, 'Covines' or 'Witch Cults'.

Ros An Bucca is a Traditionalist Craft 'kord' (clan) operating in West Cornwall today. Gemma Gary, the current serving Magistra of the Kord, writes of her experiences and views of the Traditional Craft in Cornwall:

“It is my own belief that most of the true expressions of Traditional Witchcraft are regional in nature. These expressions have their roots within their local folklore, custom, tradition and the heritage of established folk-magical practice. The ‘Pellar-current’ in Cornwall likewise has a rich heritage to draw upon. It may be said that Witch beliefs in Cornwall reached their height in the 19thC when Cornwall was home to many professional Pellars, Charmers and ‘White Witches’, a number of whom achieved considerable levels of fame and notoriety. The Craft in Cornwall was very definitely a trade and clients would often make long and difficult journeys for a consultation with a practitioner of repute, for which a hefty fee could often be expected. For those with the ‘inclination’ back then to tread the path of the ‘wise folk’, there were the well known established and traditional Cornish charms to be made and issued to clients, and a range of rites to cure, lift the effects of ‘ill wishing’ and to counter-curse. Some of these traditions and practices were related to specific places such as holy wells and ancient stone monuments. These local folk-magical beliefs and lore were there, as now, to be drawn upon by the practitioner, and the famous ‘grimoires’, available to 19thC practitioners via mail order, were also known to be made use of and provided many of the occult signs that were translated to parchment, intricately folded and enclosed within traditional Cornish charm bags. These books would also have provided the details of some ceremonial methodology, adopted into their practice, forming a marriage between the rural folk-magical and ceremonial magic traditions. As well as drawing upon established ways, Cornish practitioners it seems were also innovators and would develop their own charms, tools and forms of magical ritual. Whilst there has undoubtedly been a marked decline in Witch beliefs in Cornwall, it would be very difficult for a Craft of this nature to ever die out all together. As in the 19thC, all be it now to a lesser extent, there are still people in Cornwall who seek out assistance of a supernatural nature, there are still people with the natural inclination to walk the path of the ‘wise folk’, there are still known to us the traditional charms and rites of Cornish folk magic, there are still the local customs and lore for the practitioner to draw from and of course there are still the magical texts to provide inspiration. Of course in the latter, we have an astonishingly vast array of magical texts now on top of those that were available to the 19thC practitioner, this only calls for greater discernment.”

Before making this valuable contact, I had found what I will call the ‘Penwith Coven’, they are, perhaps wisely, quite a secretive lot and wouldn’t want their actual name publicised. I met the group’s ‘Devil’ during a visit to Boscastle. Discovering that I had ‘Traditional inclination’, I was invited to visit their ‘Covenstead’ in Penwith. The setting was most impressive, extremely otherworldly and impossibly ‘Witchy’. I recall one night time meeting, making my way there on foot along the wooded and lonely road enveloped in darkness (like much of Penwith there was no street-lighting), when I crossed the stream into the wooded area I wondered how I would find my way along the winding pathway without falling down the well I knew lurked nearby, or into the ditch! Then I realised, to my young amazement, that the pathway itself was glowing an eerie electric blue! I’m told it was some kind of glow-in-the-dark fungus but it was amazing and jolly handy in the darkness. The group’s practices and rituals were very different to those of the other groups I had encountered but very familiar to me. Their wordless rites involved black robed circumambulations about the fire to induce trance, visions, make invocations and gather power before mead was passed around in a huge cow horn that would splash rivers of its contents down the drinker’s face and body if it were held incorrectly! They operated around a central theme derived from an old Witch legend of the coventsead’s particular locality (and Cornwall has many of these legends). To the ways of this had been added some elements from a mixture of traditions, born from the group members' other Craft involvements and contacts, which included influences from the likes of Gerald Gardner, Alex Sanders, Ruth Wynn Owen, Ithell Colquhuon, Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels and in particular Robert Cochrane & Co via the Regency of which the group's Devil/Magister had been a former member, with Royal Windsor contacts. Their Cornish emphasis, with some ritual influences from their Cochranian and other Traditional contacts couldn’t have been more harmonious with my own ways..." "Eventually, in their wooded stone circle, I was consecrated and ritually handed the group’s Staff and Horn to become their leader..."