The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in AnthropologyMurray, Margaret Alice
Religion
The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
Murray, Margaret Alice
Ethnology; Witchcraft -- Great Britain
Forbes, the great Scotch lawyer, says that 'to some he [the Devil] gives
certain Spirits or Imps to correspond with, and serve them as their
Familiars, known to them by some odd Names, to which they answer when
called. These Imps are said to be kept in Pots or other Vessels.'[839]
Though the domestic familiar is thus mentioned in the law of Scotland, it
never occurs in the trials. It is confined so strictly to England that
Hutchinson is able to say 'I meet with little mention of _Imps_ in any
Country but ours, where the Law makes the feeding, suckling, or rewarding
of them to be Felony'.[840] It is not found north of Lancashire, and the
chief records are in Essex, Suffolk, and the other Eastern counties.
The domestic familiar was always a small animal, was fed in a special
manner on bread and milk and blood, and was kept, as Forbes points out, in
a box or earthen pot on a bed of wool. It was used for working magic on the
persons and property of other people, never for divining. Giffard records
the general belief: 'The witches have their spirits, some hath one, some
hath more, as two, three, foure, or five, some in one likenesse, and some
in another, as like cats, weasils, toades, or mise, whom they nourish with
milke or with a chicken, or by letting them suck now and then a drop of
bloud.'[841]
In the earlier trials the witches confessed to pricking the hands or face
and giving the resulting drop or drops of blood to the familiar. In the
later trials this has developed into the sucking of the witch's blood by
the familiar; and the supernumerary nipple, which was so marked a feature
of the English witches, was popularly supposed to be caused by such
sucking. It is more probable, however, that the witch who was possessed of
a supernumerary nipple would regard it as something supernatural, and would
use it to nourish a supernatural animal.
Elizabeth Francis, tried at Chelmsford in 1556,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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