Witches and Familiars

These are a few historical jottings on the subject of witches and their familiars.

At the time of the witch trials, (16th/17th century), familiars appeared in two forms:

1) animals, usually pets, such as cats (traditionally black, but that is a folklore gloss) associated with a person, or in a folklore tale.

Bear in mind that a cat was not the domestic pet of today, was also kept to keep down vermin. In Shakespeare (Macbeth), it is a "hedgepig".

2) forced confessions, in which the victim told of the devil appearing in the form of a cat, dog, raven, etc. These may not have
existed at all.

The two were conflated in popular imagination.

Note that the "Great Cat Massacre" in Paris (1730), as Robert Darnton has shown, was to do with print shop workers revenge at harsh working conditions imposed by their masters; the masters wives kept many cats as a sign of prestige, "one kept twenty-five cats. He had their portraits painted and fed them on roast fowl". At this time, the workers were being given rotten meat that the cats refused to eat! So this episode, contrary to some internet postings, has nothing to do with witchcraft.

Cat massacres earlier in the Middle Ages seem to have followed much the same pattern, as well as a general animal cruelty of the time as sport for fun! (e.g. dancing bears, cock-fighting etc.) and there is nothing in the records to indicate any association with witchcraft or familiars.

Sites such as Witches Brew (http://www.witchs-brew.org/shadows/animals/familiar.html) suggest that cat torture was to do with witchcraft, but this is unlikely; we forget what horrible entertainments the villagers of the Middle Ages would do to animals "just for fun". The feast of fools in Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" captures the cruelty of the times very well.

There is a precis of Danton's work (with original document extracts) at:

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/2539/History/Cat_Massacre.html

There is an excellent article at:
http://www.hulford.co.uk/familiar.html

The Role of the "Familiar" in English Witch Trials

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Other References:

"Feline Fortunes: Contrasting Views of Cats in Popular Culture." by
Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence, "Journal of Popular Culture". Volume: 36.
Issue: 3., 2003

"Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern
Europe." by Stuart Clark, 1999

"Folk-Lore of Shakespeare." by T. F. Thiselton Dyer, 1884