[Footnote 822: De Lancre, _Tableau_, p. 91.] [Footnote 823: _Trial of Isobel Inch_, p. 11.] [Footnote 824: Howell, iv, 842.] [Footnote 825: Lamont, p. 12. For further particulars of this lady, see Ross, _Aberdour and Inchcolme_, p. 339.] [Footnote 826: Horneck, pt. ii, p. 319.] [Footnote 827: Cotton Mather, p. 131.] [Footnote 828: _Narr. of the Sufferings of a Young Girle_, p. xl.] [Footnote 829: _Narr. of the Sufferings of a Young Girle_, p. xliv; _Sadducismus Debellatus_, pp. 43-4.] [Footnote 830: Sharpe, p 46.] VIII. FAMILIARS AND TRANSFORMATIONS The question of familiars is one which has always puzzled the student of witch-trials, and almost more than any other has been the cause of the belief that hysteria and hallucination were the foundation of the witches' confessions. Yet when the accounts are carefully examined, the circumstantial detail given in the evidence shows that here, as elsewhere, a foundation of fact underlies the statements of the accused. These statements are often misunderstood and therefore misrepresented by the recorders, and still more so by the modern commentator, but by comparison of the details a considerable amount of information can be gained. The familiars can be divided into two types: (1) those by which the witch divined, (2) those who attended on the witch to obey her commands. 1. _The Divining Familiar_ The essence of this familiar is that it did not belong to the witch but was an animal which appeared accidentally after the performance of certain magical ceremonies. Forbes puts this quite clearly when describing the contract: 'The Devil on his Part articles with such Proselytes, concerning the Shape he is to appear to them in, the Services they are to expect from him, upon the Performance of certain Charms or ceremonious Rites.'[831] From this statement and from the facts revealed in the trials it would seem that the Devil appointed to the witch, on her admission, some kind of animal or animals by which she should divine, and which therefore represented himself for the time being, for he claimed the power, as God, to know and reveal the future. This explanation accounts for the fact that the witches always spoke of such animals as the Devil and believed that they could foretell the future by his means. The actual method of divination is not preserved; all that remains of the ceremony are the words and gestures which were used before the appearance of the animal, and these only in few cases. The method was probably such as obtained in other places where auguries by animals and birds were practised, i.e. by the direction and pace of the animal, by its actions, by its voice if it emitted any sound, and so on. The method of making such observations and of translating them when made was part of the instruction given to the witch by the Devil; and was usually employed to discover whether a person were bewitched, the ultimate result of an illness, and the length of life of any given person.