An old Novgorod chronicle has a story about a baptised Novgorod man who in 1071 went to a chud sorcerer to have his fortune told.

The ethnonyme for chud derives from the Slavonic word "chuzhoi" - meaning strange, or a stranger - which is how the Slavs probably regarded all nations speaking Balto-Finnic languages, including the forebears of today's Estonians. This particular part in the chronicle is regarded as one of the oldest written accounts of Estonians being presented as mighty sages and sorcerers. At that time, Christianity was not too widely spread among Estonians, and the mentioned episode describes a shamanist séance of a chud healer. The brief mention indirectly opposes the native peoples' own faith and the religion of the Christians. The historian Adam from Bremen, for example, also wrote in the 11th century that people arrive in Estonia and Courland to seek the advice of the sages.

In the North-Eurasian shaman cultures the prevailing explanation for illness is the loss of the soul - the disease is caused by the soul departing from the body which could then find itself in the sphere of much stronger souls (e.g. of dead ancestors). In the process of healing the shaman must thus find the soul and return it to the owner.

Folk medicine as a whole focuses on explaining the causes and origin of illnesses. It was believed that a disease (especially a mythological one), like other supernatural phenomena, lost its power over people when the sufferer's doctor found out its name and origin. Establishing the roots of a disease provides healing with a direction - it is vital that the means of treatment should come from the same source as the illness. According to ancient understanding, diseases mostly originate in the wind, water, soil, the underworld (the dead) and in witchcraft or the evil eye.

For example, treating illnesses sent by the dead was based on a contact-magical healing system where the most valued means of cure were soap and vodka (used for washing a dead body), the clothes that belonged to the deceased, and sand or soil taken from the grave. At the same time it was dangerous to leave items connected with the dead lying around as they could be used for making somebody ill, and thus each farm household kept the necessary items for healing, but immediately burned everything else.

Even today, people in some parts of the country believe in the evil eye: casting the evil eye and the damaging boasting that goes with it. Maybe this is why the Estonians are moderate in their words and not too eager to talk about their life in a positive key. The phenomenon of the evil eye relies, after all, on the balance in the world: happiness and success must be followed by decline. Fear for excess success and happiness also causes fear for praise. People with an evil eye differ from others by their peculiar, often unpleasant, appearance (redheads, hunchbacks, cross-eyed) or their marginal position in society. The popular understanding of the damaging impact of an evil eye extends to all spheres of life: illness, death, bad luck in private life, crop failure, cattle diseases and misfortunes. Incidentally, the religious father Martin Luther was also convinced of the harmful effect of the evil eye and regarded it as the cause of various illnesses of small children.

Although Estonians were formally Christianised in the 13th century, folk medicine firmly retained its pre-Christian beliefs about the causes and origin of diseases and magical cures. In the course of time, many Catholic-Christian elements, and Biblical legacy especially, blended into the tradition of spells or incantation. People also believed in the Seventh Book of Moses from the Bible, a mysterious book of witchcraft with black pages and red or white letters, containing secret knowledge of various sorts. The Book constitutes strong supernatural power that only people with special abilities can keep in check - witches and sorcerers.

The evidence about witch trials in the 16th-17th century Estonia reveal that a large part of accusations are about witchcraft resulting in illness or death of people or cattle. One of the most frequent charges was poisoning someone with magically tampered beer, as a result of which a snake, frog or another animal was created in the victim's stomach. In other European countries those accused of witchcraft and magic were mostly old women and the informers were women as well, whereas in Estonia the situation was amazingly quite different - more men than women had to face a witch trial here, and those testifying against them were men as well. In 1632, for example, a South-Estonian farmer called Pudell was accused of using the magical power contained in a word to make the men, women and children of three families sick and impoverished, to kill some horses and to do yet further evil by witchcraft. His trial documents show that he actually had a sharp tongue and an equally sharp mind, and was one of many healers or country doctors, some of whom can still be found in Estonia today. The judges wrote down several of Pudell's healing words. It turns out that the sage had directed his prayers towards Jesus Christ, St George, St Joseph and St Mary, but did not forget the pre-Christian powers of nature that people had faith in. Local sages - lightening 'experts' - also knew charms or prayers for thunder and lightening that were used both for dispelling thunderous rain or healing people. In 1841, for example, Hargla pastor Hollmann in South-Estonia recorded lightening charms with Catholic elements that were used to repel various diseases.

However, the crusaders did not only introduce a new religion and worldview to Estonia, but also new diseases e.g. plague, leprosy and erysipelas (rose disease). The latter is one of the most 'popular' illnesses in Estonian folk medicine - all diseases with rash or inflammation were connected with rose. The cause for rose-diseases was considered an evil eye, fear or catching cold, and they were treated on the principle of analogue, i.e. with something red, such as rags with dried menstrual blood. The real cause, bacterium streptococcus, was discovered only in 1880.

Salt as a remedy has been known for centuries. The substance is known as a symbol of immortality and got its name from the Roman goddess of health, Saulus. Ceremonies conducted in her honour always included salt. Salt as a remedy achieved special popularity with Estonians in the practice of so-called 'monks' medicine'. Before giving the healing salt to a patient, the monks chanted prayers to go with it (in Estonian - puhusid soola peale, blew on the salt). The synonym in Estonian for a folk or country doctor, soolapuhuja, blower on salt, probably dates from that time. In contemporary Estonian this term has acquired a derogatory flavour, meaning a quack doctor or a fraud.

The most renowned healing liquid in Estonia is vodka, produced locally since the 15th century. The popularity of vodka as a remedy is clearly expressed in the well-known saying: if you don't have a fatal illness, vodka will help. In case vodka was not available, and also for internal treatment of children and women, pure running (spring) water has been used. It was also possible to read the future in vodka or water. All Nordic peoples know this magical craft. Even today, quite a universal cure is the snake vodka. To get this useful substance you had to first catch a viper (Vipera berus) in early spring, shove it into a bottle alive and pour vodka over it. It then had to be kept in a room without a fireplace. The meat of a fried or boiled viper or a grass snake has also been used to cure various diseases, e.g. rabies and schizophrenia - it is supposed to make even the most idiotic man clever. The mid-19th century folk medicine practitioners Saare Tõnis and Ratta Jaan were so popular and successful that they attracted the attention of professional medics as well.

Popular healing methods included drawing magical signs with a lead pencil on the bad skin, or using dyed yarn and ribbons to stop the bleeding, eliminate tumours and warts, etc. A disease could be frightened and startled and thus made to retreat.

In the 1920s-1930s it was quite difficult for country people to get to see a professional doctor, but they did not seem to mind that much - a visit to a learned doctor in town was undertaken only as a last resort when a fatal illness seemed to be the problem. There were people in every household or village who could cure with herbs, knew the traditional healing methods and were well versed in the mysterious magic of words and chants. According to questionnaires in 1925 and 1929, about 400 healers and whisperers were active in Estonia. There were probably many more as not all people capable of pulling a tooth or bloodletting were recorded. The healers were both men and women, usually over 40 years of age.

Due to the improving and increasingly accessible health care system, some professional doctors were in favour of eliminating popular folk medicine, regarding it a hopelessly outdated phenomenon. A number of diseases were nevertheless more effectively cured by local healers than university-educated medics. Those suffering from, for example, erysipelas or were bitten by a snake, sought immediate help from their village healer. The same was true of disorders caused by the so-called evil eye, common cold or being scared. In fact, the local healer in Valgamaa, Anton Taits (1902-1956) worked in perfect understanding with the popular surgeon Pobul - both sent patients to the other.

Although medical care was free and available to everyone in the Soviet era, the healers, sorcerers and witches saw no reason to change profession. However, they now had to operate underground as it was illegal to work as a doctor without a university degree. What is more - it was a criminal offence, regarded as fraud and deceit.

People often turned to local healers because of misunderstandings in the patient-doctor relationship, suspecting inadequate or erroneous treatment, or in case of chronic of fatal (cancer) illnesses. In the early 1980s, however, the then already senile communist party leader Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev suddenly allowed free rein to the amateur doctors - allegedly he had been to many a shaman and healer of different nationality all over the Soviet Union to seek the elixir of eternal youth and immortality. This was the time when regular Estonian doctors sent patients to famous 'miracle doctors', who often became hugely popular media heroes, and who promoted medicines produced by themselves: tinctures, extracts and other miracle drugs for every possible ailment. Many of them also used various apparatuses and gadgets with different measuring devices that allegedly partly came from the Soviet military or space industry, and were therefore especially reliable in determining exact diagnosis or treatment. After the old party leader's death, however, the amateur doctors again fell into disfavour, their activities continuing for some time hidden from the public eye.

In the 1990s when Estonia was once again independent, the restrictions were abolished and today the popular, or alternative, medicine enjoys great popularity amongst Estonians. There is a saying that every Estonian considers himself an expert in medicine and politics and enthusiastically speaks out on these subjects. It is true that there is at least one member in each family who can give good advice in the case of simpler ailments, knows herbs available in this country, gathers or grows them and often uses herbal cures for treating various diseases or just for cleansing or invigorating the body. Besides professional doctors there are a number of active healers today in Estonia with different world views (Vigala Sass, Kaika Laine, Vormsi Enn etc.) who are willing to promote and publish their knowledge and skills, thus having an impact on how many people think and act in matters concerning health. Village societies and non-Estonian communities still turn to simple local healers or rely on folk heritage and ancient traditions where good knowledge of people, nature and the Bible play a significant role.

A professional doctor is still sometimes accused of wrongful treatment and incompetence, but any help from the local healer, however little it matches the expectations, is much appreciated. A popular saying goes like this: I did not exactly get well, but I feel much better.

Marju Torp-Kõivupuu, PhD, is a docent at the Tallinn University. One of her topics of research is ethnomedicine. She has published numerous articles and a monograph about ethnomedicine, the second edition of which is available as an e-book in Estonian at: http://www.folklore.ee/pubte/rahvaarsti.