The history of witchcraft and demonologySummers, Montague
History
The history of witchcraft and demonology
Summers, Montague
Demonology; Demonology -- History; Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- History
In Ford and Dekker’s _The Witch of Edmonton_ the familiar appears upon
the stage as a dog. This, of course, is directly taken from Henry
Goodcole’s pamphlet _The Wonderfull Discouerie of Elizabeth Sawyer_
(London, 4to, 1621), where in answer to this question the witch confesses
that the Devil came to her in the shape of a dog, and of two colours,
sometimes of black and sometimes of white. Some children had informed
the Court that they had seen her feeding imps, two white ferrets, with
white bread and milk, but this she steadfastly denied. In Goethe’s
_Faust_, Part I, Scene 2, Mephistopheles first appears to Faust outside
the city gates as a black poodle and accompanies him back to his study,
snarling and yelping when _In Principio_ is read. This is part of the
old legend. Manlius (1590), in the report of his conversation with
Melanchthon, quotes the latter as having said: “He [Faust] had a dog
with him, which was the devil.” Paolo Jovio relates[92] that the famous
Cornelius Agrippa always kept a demon attendant upon him in the shape
of a black dog. But John Weye, in his well-known work _De Præstigiis
Dæmonum_,[93] informs us that he had lived for years in daily attendance
upon Agrippa and that the black dog, _Monsieur_, respecting which such
strange stories were spread was a perfectly innocent animal which he
had often led about himself in its leash. Agrippa was much attached to
his dog, which used to eat off the table with him and of nights lie in
his bed. Since he was a profound scholar and a great recluse he never
troubled to contradict the idle gossip his neighbours clacked at window
and door. It is hardly surprising when one considers the hermetic works
which go under Agrippa’s name that even in his lifetime this great man
should have acquired the reputation of a mighty magician.
Grotesque names were generally given to the familiar: Lizabet; Verd-Joli;
Maître Persil (parsley); Verdelet; Martinet; Abrahel (a succubus); and
to animal familiars in England, Tissy; Grissell; Greedigut; Blackman;
Jezebel (a succubus); Ilemanzar; Jarmara; Pyewackett.
The familiar in human shape often companied with the witch and was
visible to clairvoyants. Thus in 1324 one of the accusations brought
against Lady Alice Kyteler was that a demon came to her “quandoque in
specie cuiusdam æthiopis cum duobus sociis.” The society met with at
Sabbats is not so easily shaken off as might be wished.
NOTES TO CHAPTER III.
[1] Two local Milanese Orders, the Apostolini of S. Barnabas and the
Congregation of S. Ambrose _ad Nemus_, were united by a Brief of
Sixtus V, 15 August, 1589. 11 January, 1606, Paul V approved the new
Constitutions. The Congregation retaining very few members was dissolved
by Innocent X in 1650. The habit was a tunic, broad scapular, and capuche
of chestnut brown. They were calced, and in the streets a wide cloak of
the same colour as the habit.
[2] E. Goldsmid, _Confessions of Witches under Torture_, Edinburgh, 1886.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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