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Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca

Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca · Chapter V: Traditional Witchcraft

The Witch's Familiar: Familiar Spirits in History and Folklore

The witch's familiar explained: familiar spirits in the Bible, the English witch trials and Matthew Hopkins, fairy helpers, and modern witchcraft.

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A witch's familiar is a spirit believed to serve a witch, usually in the shape of a small animal such as a cat, dog, toad, mouse or bird. The belief is most strongly documented in the witch trials of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, where accused women were said to feed familiars with their own blood in return for help in harming neighbours. Historians link it to older ideas of household spirits, to the spirits of learned magic and to fairy beliefs, and the familiar has been reinterpreted in modern witchcraft as an animal companion or spirit ally.

What Is a Witch's Familiar?§

In early modern usage a familiar was a demon or spirit that attached itself to a particular person, served them and was rewarded for its service. It was "familiar" in the old sense of being part of the household, like a servant. Trial records describe familiars that spoke, gave advice, carried out acts of harm on command, and demanded food, attention and sometimes a drop of blood. Many had homely names: Tibb, Jack, Grissel, Pigin, Vinegar Tom.

The idea combined several strands. One was the very old belief in domestic spirits, such as the brownies and hobs of British folklore, which helped in the house in exchange for small offerings. Another was the learned tradition of spirits bound to serve a magician. A third was the theological conviction that any spirit helping a witch must be a demon, whatever form it took. In the courtroom these strands merged into the image of a malicious creature that sealed the witch's bond with the Devil.

Familiar Spirits in the Bible and Learned Magic§

English readers knew the phrase above all from the Bible. The King James Version uses "familiar spirit" to translate the Hebrew ob, a spirit of the dead consulted by mediums. Leviticus 19:31 commands, "Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards," and the medium consulted by King Saul at Endor is described as "a woman that hath a familiar spirit" (1 Samuel 28). These passages were cited constantly by demonologists to prove that witchcraft was real and deserved punishment.

Learned magicians had their own familiars. Medieval and Renaissance necromancers sought to bind a spirit into a ring, a crystal or a small bottle so that it could be consulted at will, and manuscripts of ritual magic contain operations for obtaining such a servant. Church courts sometimes prosecuted clergy and treasure-seekers for keeping spirits in this way. Legends attached familiars to famous scholars, including the story that Paracelsus kept a spirit in the pommel of his sword. Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), with its appended material on conjuration, preserved examples of this lore while mocking it; see the Scot texts in the library.

Familiars in the English Witch Trials§

The animal familiar first appears clearly in the printed account of the trials at Chelmsford, Essex, in 1566. Elizabeth Francis confessed that her grandmother had given her a white spotted cat called Sathan, which she fed with bread and milk and with drops of her blood, and which brought her sheep and a husband and harmed those who crossed her. She later passed the cat to Agnes Waterhouse, who was said to have turned it into a toad. Agnes Waterhouse was hanged, and is often described as one of the first women executed under the Elizabethan Witchcraft Act of 1563.

Later pamphlets repeated and elaborated the pattern. At St Osyth in Essex in 1582, Ursula Kemp and others were accused of keeping spirits in the shapes of cats, a lamb and a toad. In the Pendle trials in Lancashire in 1612, recorded by the court clerk Thomas Potts, Elizabeth Southerns, known as Old Demdike, was said to have met a spirit called Tibb, and her rival Anne Whittle (Old Chattox) a spirit called Fancie. In each case the familiar acted on the witch's anger, killing animals or people after a quarrel.

The law gave these stories force. The Witchcraft Act of 1604, passed early in the reign of James I, made it a capital felony to "consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil and wicked spirit". Evidence that a suspect kept a familiar could therefore be enough for a conviction even without proof of harm. Contemporary sceptics such as George Gifford, whose Dialogue Concerning Witches (1593) explored village accusations, accepted that the Devil worked through such spirits but warned that neighbours too easily blamed old women for ordinary misfortunes.

Matthew Hopkins and the Witch's Mark§

The familiar reached its grimmest prominence in the East Anglian witch-hunt of 1645–47, led by Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne during the English Civil War. Perhaps a hundred people were executed, more than in any other English episode. Hopkins's methods centred on familiars. Suspects were searched for the "witch's mark" or "teat", an unusual spot on the body from which imps were supposed to suck blood, and were then "watched", kept awake and under observation for days and nights in the expectation that their familiars would come to feed. Exhausted prisoners frequently confessed and named their spirits.

The frontispiece of Hopkins's pamphlet The Discovery of Witches (1647) shows the witch-finder with two accused women and their familiars, including a cat, a dog, a rabbit-like creature and others with names such as Vinegar Tom, Pyewackett, Sacke and Sugar and Griezzell Greedigutt. Hopkins claimed that no mortal could invent such names. Critics in his own time, notably the clergyman John Gaule, attacked his methods, and modern historians such as Malcolm Gaskill read the episode as a product of wartime breakdown, local tensions and the witch-finders' own convictions. On the wider pattern of trials, see the European witch trials.

Scotland, the Continent and Fairy Familiars§

The animal familiar was characteristic of England. In Scotland and much of continental Europe the accused more often described a personal demon who appeared in human form, frequently as a man in dark clothes, and who acted as lover and master. Basque trials of 1609–1614 offered a striking variant: witches were said to keep toads dressed in clothes, which they fed and from which they made poisons.

Some Scottish confessions point in another direction. Bessie Dunlop of Ayrshire, tried in 1576, described a spirit called Thom Reid, a man who had died years before at the battle of Pinkie and who now lived among the fairies. He advised her on healing and on finding stolen goods. In 1662 Isobel Gowdie of Auldearn described encounters with the Queen of Elphame and elf-arrows, alongside visits to the Devil. Emma Wilby's Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits (2005) argued that such accounts reflect a widespread popular tradition in which healers and cunning folk had helping spirits, often of fairy or ghostly origin, met in visionary experience. Interrogators then redefined these helpers as demons.

Other historians have given different emphases. Alan Macfarlane and Keith Thomas noted that many accused women were poor, isolated and kept animals that became objects of suspicion; James Sharpe stressed the role of pamphlet literature in spreading a stereotype; and some scholars emphasise the part played by interrogators' leading questions. These explanations can work together. The familiar sits where folk belief, learned demonology and the pressures of interrogation met, much like the wider fear of maleficium.

Familiars in Modern Witchcraft§

Modern witches have reclaimed the familiar. In much contemporary Wicca and Pagan practice, a familiar is a companion animal, often a cat, with which the witch feels a particular bond, and which may be present during ritual. Popular culture has reinforced the image of the witch's black cat, itself the subject of long-standing animal superstitions.

In traditional witchcraft, writers drawing on the historical sources more often describe the familiar as a spirit ally rather than a pet: a being encountered in vision or trance, sometimes taking animal form, which teaches or assists the witch. Such practitioners frequently cite Wilby's research and the confessions of figures such as Isobel Gowdie. Historians note that these are modern interpretations built on fragmentary records, not continuous traditions, but they show how the trial evidence has become a resource for new religious practice, as happened earlier with the Murray thesis.

Frequently asked questions§

What is a witch's familiar?§

In early modern belief, a familiar was a spirit that served a witch, often appearing as a cat, dog, toad or other small animal and rewarded with food or blood. Courts and theologians regarded it as a demon. In modern witchcraft the term usually means a companion animal or a spiritual helper.

Why were familiars important in English witch trials?§

English trial pamphlets made the animal familiar a standard proof of witchcraft, and the 1604 Witchcraft Act made feeding or rewarding an evil spirit a capital crime. Witch-finders such as Matthew Hopkins searched for marks where familiars supposedly fed and watched suspects to see them arrive.

Were black cats always witches' familiars?§

No. Cats appear often in English accounts, but so do dogs, toads, mice, ferrets, birds and imaginary creatures. The strong link between witches and black cats owes much to later folklore, illustration and popular culture.

Do modern witches have familiars?§

Many do in a modern sense. Some regard a pet as a familiar with a special bond; others, especially in traditional witchcraft, speak of non-physical spirit allies. These are contemporary interpretations rather than direct survivals of the historical belief.

Sources and further reading§