The best fantasy novels full of real-world magic

Wellman roots the adventures of his hero, Korean War vet John “the Balladeer,” in Appalachian folktale and folk customs. His hero battles strange old evils in the mountains with his faith, his traditional American folk magic (he carried a copy of The Long Lost Friend), and the evil-repelling silver of his guitar strings. Silver John was a major influence on our hero in The Cunning Man, Hiram Woolley.

Drake’s old Nathan is explicitly identified as a “cunning man” throughout these tales. Inspired by Wellman’s Silver John, Old Nathan is a predecessor, an Appalachian wizard in the late 1700s and early 1800s, using real-world folk magic to ward off curses, heal wounds, and otherwise battle evil. Like Silver John and Hiram Woolley, Old Nathan is a war veteran—a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Nathan’s war wounds left him crippled and pulled aside from ordinary life, turning him into the course of becoming a magician.

My list isn't about Americana, it’s a list about real-world magic. Clarke’s Strange and Norell fall apart over the nature of what is proper English magic as that magic is returning to the world. The specific issue on which they split is fairies, who can be a source of great power, but who are also mysterious and unpredictable. This idea has roots in actual historical English magic, and brings us again to the cunning folk, many of whom were said to work with familiar spirits… but when courts of law investigated these familiar spirits, it was never clear whether they were fairies, angels, the spirits of the dead, or something else entirely.

If you know Hellboy only from the movies, you’re seeing a very limited image of the character and his adventures. Hellboy has many roots (pulp sci fi and crimefighter stories, superhero tales, Lovecraft’s mythos), but one of his earliest is in real world magic and folktale. We see this in his encounters with Baba Yaga, Hecate, and others, but also in his battle fairy creatures that are vulnerable to unforged iron.

Compared to fantasy novels since, Tolkien’s masterpiece seems to have less flashy magic (it’s light on fireballs and teleportation spells, both of which might have made the trip to Mordor considerably easier). That’s because Tolkien’s magic is, with a light touch, rooted in the magical traditions of the real world. When Gandalf confronts the Balrog, he doesn’t cast a forcefield spell, he reminds the Balrog of their respective esoteric identities (“You cannot pass. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.”). And when Aragorn tends to the wounded in Gondor, he does so with a long-forgotten herb and a bit of doggerel.