FAMILIARS
From witch stories it is only a short step to stories about witches'
familiars, for nearly all sorcerers are gifted with the power of
sending out a spirit or second soul to do the work of the evil one. A
distinction has therefore to be made between the witch in animal form
and the external soul of the witch sent forth in the shape of an
animal while she retains her human appearance.
The "familiar" or "imp," whether a real animal or spirit in animal
form, stands ever ready at the sorcerer's elbow waiting to do his
bidding. The "life" of the familiar is bound up with that of the
witch, and if the former be wounded, the latter will suffer from an
injury in a corresponding part of the body. Death to the familiar
means death to the witch, and the way to get rid of the spell is to
kill the double of the witch. To this class belong some of the most
interesting phenomena, as well as the most inexplicable, dealing with
the human animal theory.
In one case a blue butterfly was seen to flutter over a certain farm,
and as affairs there had not been going at all well, it was looked
upon with dread and suspicion as the bringer of evil. For three weeks
the insect hovered about and during that period "no butter came." Then
the farmer decided to take steps to break the enchantment. Armed with
a wet towel he sallied forth to chase the alleged familiar and,
cleverly flapping his cloth, he brought down the butterfly at a swoop.
Precisely at that moment a woman, who was suspected of being a witch,
was found lying dead outside the door of her house close by, and after
the double event there was no further trouble with the churning.
Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, Essex, a witch-finder of ill-fame, was
the cause of bringing thousands of supposed witches to judgment and so
to the stake. He was paid 20s. in each town he visited and managed to
rid of its suspicious characters, and he appears to have found his
profession extraordinarily lucrative. In 1644 he was commissioned by
Parliament to make a circuit through several counties with a view to
discovering witches. He travelled in the company of several boon
companions for three years and was instrumental in having sixteen
persons hanged at Yarmouth, forty at Bury and at least sixty in other
parts of Suffolk, Norfolk and Huntingdonshire.
During a notorious trial of a number of witches at Chelmsford, Essex, on
July 29th, 1645, Hopkins made a deposition about an alleged witch,
Elizabeth Clarke, who confessed that she had known the devil intimately
for more than six years and that he visited her between three and five
times a week. She invited Hopkins and his companions, one of whom was a
man called Sterne, to stay at her house for a time until she could call
up one of her white imps for them to see. Presently there appeared on
the scene an imp like a dog, white and with sandy spots, which seemed to
be very fat and plump, with short legs. The animal forthwith vanished
away. The said Elizabeth gave the name of this imp as Jarmara. And
immediately afterwards there appeared another imp, which she called
Vinegar Tom, in the shape of a greyhound with long legs. The said
Elizabeth then remarked that the next imp should be black in colour and
that it should come for Master Sterne (the other witness already
mentioned), and it appeared as she promised, but presently vanished
without leaving a sign. The last imp of all to come before the
spectators was a creature in the shape of a polecat, but the head
somewhat bigger. The said Elizabeth then disclosed to the informant
that she had five imps of her own. And two other imps with which she had
dealings belonged to a certain Beldame Anne West.[73]
The said Matthew Hopkins, when going from the house of a Mr. Edwards
of Manningtree, to his own house, one night between nine and ten
o'clock, accompanied by his favourite greyhound, noticed the dog give
a sudden leap and run off as though in full course after a hare.
Hastening to see what the greyhound pursued so eagerly, he espied a
white thing about the size of a kitten, and the panting dog was
standing aloof from the creature. By and by the imp or kitten began to
dance about and around the said greyhound and, viciously approaching
him, bit or tore a piece of flesh off the dog's shoulder.
Coming later into his own yard, the informant saw a black thing
proportioned like a cat, only that it was thrice as big, sitting on a
strawberry bed and fixing its luminous eyes on him. But when he went
towards it, it leaped suddenly over the palings and ran towards the
informant as he thought, but instead, it fled through the yard with
his greyhound in hot pursuit after it to a great gate which was
"underset with a pair of tumbrell strings," and it did throw the said
gate wide open and then vanished. And the said greyhound returned
again to the informant shaking and trembling exceedingly.
Sterne gave evidence on the same day, and much to the same effect, but
said that the white imp was like a cat but not so big, and when he asked
Elizabeth whether she was not afraid of her imps she answered, "What! do
you think I am afraid of my children?" and she called the imp Jarmara as
having red spots, and spoke of two more called Sack and Sugar. Four
other witnesses confirmed the story practically in its entirety.
Elizabeth Clarke herself gave evidence then, and said Anne West had
sent her a "thing like a little kitlyn," which would obtain food for
her. Two or three nights after this promise, a white thing came to her
in the night, and the night after a grey one spoke to her and said it
would do her no hurt and would help her to get a husband. After
various charges against the said Elizabeth Clarke and her accomplice,
Elizabeth Gooding, Anne Leech, a third woman accused of witchcraft,
deposed on April 14th that she and the other two accused sent their
respective grey, black and white imps to kill cattle belonging to
various neighbours, and that later they had sent them to kill
neighbours' children and she added that her imps spoke to her in a
hollow voice which she plainly understood, and that these accused
witches had met together at the house of the said Elizabeth Clarke,
when a book was read "wherein she thinks there was no goodness."
Another woman suspected of witchcraft was Helen Clark who confessed on
April 11th that the devil had appeared to her in the likeness of a
white dog, and that she called her familiar Elimanzer and that she fed
him with milk-pottage and that he spoke to her audibly and bade her
deny Christ.
With the witch Anne West was implicated her daughter Rebecca West,
who, however, was acquitted, and the notorious Matthew Hopkins deposed
that she had told him of visiting the house of Clarke with her mother,
and that they had found Leech, Gooding, and Helen Clark, and that the
devil had appeared in the shape of a dog, afterwards in the shape of
two kittens, then in the shape of two dogs, and that the said
familiars did homage in the first place to the said Elizabeth Clarke
and slipped up into her lap and kissed her, and then went and kissed
all that were in the room except the said Rebecca, who was then made
to swear on a book that she would not reveal what she saw or heard--on
pain of the torments of hell, and that afterwards the devil came and
kissed her and promised to marry her, and she sent him to kill a
neighbour's child, of the name of Hart, who died within a fortnight.
Susan Sparrow, who gave her evidence on the 25th of April, said that
the house in which she lived with one Mary Greenleif, was haunted by a
leveret which usually came and sat before the door, which, when
coursed by a dog, never stirred, "and just when the dog came at it, he
skipped over it and turned about and stood still, and looked on it,
and shortly after that the dog languished and died."
Another of the witches, called Margaret Moone, had a familiar "in the
likeness of a rat for bigness and shape, but of a greyer colour." She
confessed to two of the witnesses that she had twelve imps and called
these by such names as Jesus, Jockey, Mounsier, Sandy, Mrs. Elizabeth,
and Collyn, etc. Moone was a "woman of very bad fame," who confessed to
many crimes, especially of causing the death of animals and children.
Rose Hallybread, who died in gaol before execution, was accused of
being implicated with Joyce Boanes in sending four familiars to the
house of a carpenter, Robert Turner, whose servant was then taken sick
and "crowed perfectly like a cock, sometimes barked like a dog," sang
tunes, groaned, and struggled with such strength that five strong men
were needed to hold him. Boanes confessed that her imp made the victim
bark like a dog, Hallybread's imp caused him "to sing sundry tunes in
great extremity of pains," and Susan Cork compelled him to crow. The
torture was inflicted because Turner's servant had refused to give
Susan Cork a sack full of chips.
Anne Cate, another of the witches who was executed at Chelmsford, said
she had three familiars like mice and a fourth like a sparrow. They
were called James, Prickeare, Robyn, and Sparrow, and she sent them to
kill both cattle and human beings.
It was thought impossible to kill these familiars, and one Goff, a
glover and very honest man of Manningtree, confessed to passing Anne
West's house about four o'clock on a moonlight morning and seeing her
door was open, he looked into the house. "Presently there came three
or four little things in the shape of black rabbits leaping and
skipping about him, who, having a good stick in his hand, struck at
them thinking to kill them, but could not, but at last caught one of
them in his hand, and holding it by the body, he beat the head of it
against his stick, intending to beat the brains out of it; but when he
could not kill it that way, he took the body in one hand and the head
in another and endeavoured to wring off the head, and as he wrung and
stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of
wool." Then he tried to drown it in a spring, but kept falling down.
At last he crept to the water on hands and knees, holding the familiar
under the water for a good space. But as soon as he let go it sprang
out of the water up into the air and so vanished.
He went and asked Anne West why she had set her imps on him to molest
and trouble him, but she said "they were sent out as scouts upon
another design."[74]
Joan Cariden, widow, examined September 25, 1645, said, that about
three-quarters of a year ago, as she was in bed about twelve or one of
the clock in the night there lay a rugged soft thing on her bosom
which was very soft, and she thrust it off with her hand; and she said
that when she had thrust it away she thought God forsook her, for she
could never pray so well as she could before, and further she said
that she verily thought it was alive. Examined further, she said the
Devil came to her in the shape of a black rugged dog in the night-time
and crept into bed with her and spoke to her in mumbling language. The
next night he came again and required her to deny God and lean on him.
Jane Hott, widow and associate of the above, also examined on
September 25, 1645, confessed that a thing like a hedgehog had usually
visited her, and when it lay on her breast she struck it off with her
hand, and that it was as soft as a cat.
In 1664 one Elizabeth Style, a widow, of Bayford, was examined at
Stoke Trister, Somerset, before Robert Hunt, for witchcraft.
One of the witnesses, Nicholas Lambert, examined on January 26 of that
year, deposed to having watched the prisoner in company with William
Thick and William Read of Bayford. The informant sat near the prisoner
by the fire at three o'clock in the morning and was reading "The
Practice of Piety," when he noticed "there came from her head a
glistening bright fly about an inch in length, which pitched at first
in the chimney and then vanished. In less than a quarter of an hour
after, there appeared two flies more, of a less size and another
colour, which seemed to strike at the informant's hand in which he
held his book, but missed it. He looked steadfastly at the prisoner
and perceived her countenance to change and to become very black and
ghastly, the fire also at the same time changing its colour; whereupon
the informants, Thick and Read, conceiving that her familiar was then
about her, looked at her poll, and seeing her hair shake very
strangely, took it up, and then a fly like a great Millar flew out
from the place and pitched on the table board and then vanished away."
When asked what it was that flew out of her poll the accused said it
was a butterfly, and asked them why they had not caught it. She
confessed that it was her familiar and that was the usual time when
her familiar came to her.[75]
One Alice Duke, _alias_ Manning, of Wincanton, in Somerset, who was
tried in 1664 for witchcraft, confessed that her familiar visited her
"in the shape of a little cat of a dunnish colour, which is as smooth
as a want," and that "her familiar doth commonly suck her right breast
about seven at night," when she fell into a kind of trance.
Margaret and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower, were tried for
witchcraft near Belvoir Castle and executed at Lincoln on March 11,
1618, on the most extraordinary charges.[76]
Phillip Flower, examined on the 4th of February previously, said that
her mother and sister "maliced" the Earl of Rutland, his Countess and
their children, because her sister Margaret was put out of the ladies'
service of laundry. Phillip thereupon brought from the Castle the
right glove of the Henry Lord Ross and gave it to her mother, "who
presently rubbed it on the back of her spirit Rutterkin, and then put
it into hot boiling water, afterwards she pricked it often and buried
it in the yard, wishing Lord Ross might never thrive, and so her
sister Margaret continued with her mother, where she often saw the cat
Rutterkin leap on her shoulder and suck her neck."
Margaret corroborated the story, and added that after the sorcery Lord
Ross fell sick within a week. She also said that her mother and she
and her sister agreed to bewitch the Earl and Countess so that they
might have no more children, being angry with the Countess for telling
her she was no longer to live at the Castle, and who, giving her forty
shillings, a bolster and a mattress, bade her sleep at home.
Then she took wool from the mattress and a pair of gloves given her by
one of the Castle servants and put them into warm water, mingling them
with some blood and stirring it together. Then she took the wool and
gloves out of the water and rubbed them on the body of Rutterkin, the
cat, saying the Lord and Lady should have no more children or it
should be long first.
She further confessed that her mother told her to bring a piece of
Lady Katherine's--the earl's daughter's--kerchief, and her mother put
it in hot water and taking it out rubbed it on Rutterkin, "bidding
him fly and go." Whereupon Rutterkin whined and cried "mew," and she
said Rutterkin had no power to hurt Lady Katherine.
Examined on the 25th of February, before Francis Earl of Rutland,
Francis Lord Willoughby of Eresby, Sir George Manners, and Sir William
Pelham, Phillip Flower confessed to having a familiar spirit in the
form of a white rat, and gave her soul to it, and it promised to do
her good and cause one Thomas Simpson to love her.
The mother of these girls, Margaret Flower, being examined at the same
time and place, confessed to two familiar spirits, one white and the
other spotted black.
She further said she had been visited in Lincoln gaol by four devils,
between eleven o'clock and midnight, about the 30th January. One stood
at the foot of her bed, with a black head like an ape, and spoke to
her, though she could not understand his meaning. The other three were
the cat Rutterkin, Little Robin, and Spirit. She confirmed what her
daughters had said about Lord Ross, and said that after she rubbed the
glove on the spirit Rutterkin she threw it into the fire and burnt it.
One of the witnesses, Anne Baker of Rothsford, who was concerned in
the case of the death of Lord Ross, son of the Earl of Rutland, when
examined on March 1st, 1618, by the Earl and Sir George Manners and
Samuel Fleming, Doctor of Divinity, made the following curious
statements in the course of her confession of witchcraft.
She said she saw a hand appear to her and heard a voice in the air say
"Anne Baker, save thyself, for tomorrow thou and thy master must be
slain," and the next day her master and she were in a cart together
and suddenly she saw a flash of fire, and said her prayers, and the
fire went away, and shortly after a crow came and perched upon her
clothes, and she said her prayers again and bade the crow _to go to
whom he was sent_, and the crow went to her master and did beat him
to death, and she with her prayers recovered him to life, but he was
sick a fortnight after, and if she had not had more knowledge than he,
both of them, and the cattle, would have been killed.
Another witness at the same trial, Joan Willimott, confessed to having
a spirit she called Pretty, and she declared that a shepherd, Gamaliel
Greete, had a spirit like a white mouse put into him in his swearing;
and that if he did look upon anything with an intent to hurt it it
should be hurt, and she said further that in the home of the Flowers
she had seen two spirits, one like a rat and the other like an owl.
The basic belief that it is possible to send forth a familiar to wreak
harm on others is found fully developed in black magic, and to such
occult powers no doubt many strange phenomena may be attributed.
A peculiarly uncanny story about a witch and her familiar comes from
Poitou. A young man who lived near Champdenois, went to spend the
evening with some friends. He was jumping over a stone fence which
separated the neighbouring estates, when a familiar settled on his
back. The young man caught hold of the demon with all his strength and
strangled him, flinging him on the ground, where he lay apparently
lifeless. Curiosity induced the young man to lift the inert body on to
his shoulders, as he wished to look at it by candlelight and show it
to his friends.
When he arrived at his friends' house the inmates were sitting in a
circle about the hearth and the mistress of the house was spinning,
surrounded by her maids. They all looked wonderingly at the demon, but
the mistress appeared to be strangely ill at ease.
"I believe," said the young fellow, "it's a sorcerer. There's only one
way of finding out. We'll put it in the fire, then we shall know what
sort of being it is."
When she heard this cruel suggestion the mistress gripped the arms of
her chair in obvious anxiety and let her spindle drop to the ground,
saying she was feeling very ill. When the demon was put on to the
glowing cinders she shrieked out and was forced to confess, in a
shamefaced manner, that she had been wandering in the woods that
evening in the shape of an animal, and that the young man had captured
her double. Whether this witch intended to work harm is not divulged.
The Kaju wizards make familiars by digging up a corpse and giving it
medicine, which restores it to life. They run a hot needle up the back
of the head and slit the tongue. The familiar then speaks with
inarticulate sound and is sent out by them to do harm. This is
probably another form of ritual akin to black magic.
A beautiful enchantress and priestess lived among the natives of
Nicaragua and was served by many animals over whom she had
extraordinary powers. She also had in her service an old man and
woman. She transformed them into youthful beings, with large expanding
pinions, and clothed them in tiger- and deer-skins, adorned with
richly coloured plumage.
Another and more exalted form of the familiar was the Daemon or
Genius, a kind of spirit which, according to the beliefs of the
ancients, presided over the actions of mankind. Man was thus said to
have a good and an evil presiding spirit. The genius of Socrates, for
instance, constantly gave him information and kept him from the
commission of crime or impiety.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] The description of these imps tallies remarkably closely with
that of some animal-elements seen by occulists to-day.
[74] "A True and exact Relation of the several informations,
examinations and confessions of the late Witches arraigned and
executed in the County of Essex." Reprinted from the original of 1645,
1837, pp. iv, 34.
[75] Glanvill, Joseph, "Sadducismus Triumphatus," 1726, p. 300.
[76] "The Wonderful discovery of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and
Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower near Beuer Castle, executed
at Lincolne, March 11, 1618." Printed London, 1619.