Choose Your own Familiar

Would you have survived the witch trials?

Read on to choose your familiar and find out whether you would have survived the seventeenth century witch trials!

One of the things that distinguished witches from magicians in renaissance lore was the familiar: a lesser devil that attended the witch in the form of an animal. Magicians could also be accompanied by devil-servants, but they were more likely to appear in human form, like Mephistopheles who hangs around with Doctor Faustus looking like a friar. 

This is part of a hierarchical system for attempting to distinguish between masculine learned magic and the common folk practices of the lower classes and of women. I wrote about this distinction in depth last year if you want to find out more.

We have to remember that many of the accused women kept animals as pets for company, so this belief in familiars was a good way to literally demonise a token of their social isolation.

Scroll down to read the profiles of various familiars, all based on the real accounts of accused witches (often extracted under sleep deprivation and intimidation.) Choose your favourite, then scroll down to find out which ‘witch’ you have aligned yourself with and whether you would have survived.

Remember to share your fate in the comments below!

Tom

“Ho have I found thee cursing”

Appearance: A black dog until the hour of your death in which case, a white dog.

Temperament: Tells it like it is. So cute he’ll drive your neighbours mad.

Trainability: Will follow clear instructions in return for souls.

Good with kids? Will only appear to single women in want of a lover/son.

Pusse

Appearance: A kitten.

Temperament: Pleasant enough if allowed to suckle on your neck mole.

Trainability: Eager to please and faithful to the owner. Will murder bakers who offend you.

Good with kids? As long as they don’t call its mistress names.

Vinegar Tom

Appearance: ‘like a long-legg'd Greyhound, with an head like an Oxe, with a long taile and broad eyes’ alternatively can appear like a headless four-year-old child.

Temperament: Unstable. Has a habit of running around in circles and fleeing the room when criticised.

Trainability: Not enough brains.

Good with kids? Children might be put off by the appearance of decapitation. 

Nameless Flying Pig

Appearance: A three-seater sow

Temperament: Some turbulence but generally manageable

Trainability: Puts Babe in second place in the ranking of England’s most useful pigs.

Good with kids? We recommend a nameless flying piglet for the younger witch.

Jarmara

Appearance: ‘like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all.’

Temperament: Perfectly pleasant as long as he’s allowed to suckle blood from your belly.

Trainability: Will sit on command. And when not commanded.

Good with kids? They could certainly outrun him.  

Pretty

Appearance: Sometimes an owl, sometimes a fairy, and sometimes a woman. 

Temperament: Caring and compassionate, excellent at obtaining information about the physical well-being of others and helping heal their pains.

Trainability: Will do as she’s told as long as you let the devil blow her into your mouth.

Good with kids? Accused of murdering two little boys but otherwise trustworthy.

Boy

Appearance: A white hunting poodle, but possibly also a Lapland woman.

Temperament: Faithful to the end.

Trainability: Can be trained to catch bullets, find hidden treasure, and speak prophecies. 

Good with kids? As long as their parents aren’t Parliamentarians. 

Sacke & Sugar

Appearance: A black rabbit. 

Temperament: Refined as sack (a type of wine) and sweet as sugar.

Trainability: Responds better to carrot than to stick. 

Good with kids? Like the hellish guinea pig, this makes a great starter demon.

Which witch?

Find your familiar below to see which ‘witch’ you have chosen and find out whether you would have survived.

If you picked Tom the Dog, you are Elizabeth Sawyer.

Supposedly based on real events, The Witch of Edmonton was a 1621 play by William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford. Elizabeth Sawyer is by all accounts a sympathetic character to begin with, an old lady who is unfairly ostracised and decides that if she’s going to be treated like a witch she might as well have the powers of one. Tom becomes her dearest friend – but abandons her in the end. She is executed, so you do not survive.

If you chose Vinegar Tom, Jarmara, or Sacke & Sugar, you are Bess Clarke.

One of the Maningtree Witches from Essex, persecuted by the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, Bess Clarke was tortured using sleep deprivation and made to walk in circles until she collapsed from exhaustion (she had one wooden leg). Finally allowed to sit down, she gave in and started making up stories about the imps she had seen. She was hanged for witchcraft in 1645 so you do not survive.

If you chose Nameless Flying Pig, you are Agnes Browne.

One of the Northampton witches, Agnes lived in the village of Guilsborough and used to pop to the neighbouring village of Ravensthorpe on the flying pig to visit an elderly witch – at least according to a 1612 pamphlet. This series of trials was the first recorded case of ‘ducking’ as a test of witchcraft, where sinking was proof of innocence and floating was proof of guilt. She and her daughter were hanged so you do not survive.

If you chose Pusse or Pretty, you are Joan Willimot

Claiming to be a herbal healer, Joan swore that she and her familiars never tried to hurt anyone. She was swept up in the Belvoir witch trials when the two young heirs to the Earl of Rutland died and black magic was suspected. Three women from the Flower family died, Joan Flower collapsed on the way to her trial in 1618, but her two daughters Philippa and Margaret were hanged the following year. The fate of Joan Willimot, whom they implicated, is not known. You might survive.

If you chose Boy then you are Prince Rupert

Nephew of Charles I, Prince Rupert of the Rhine was a Royalist commander who was accused of witchcraft by the enemy Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. He survived the war and died of pleurisy in 1682. Boy the poodle was not so lucky, dying at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1642. Congratulations, you escape the witch hunts!

Did you survive? Make sure to share in the comments below.

If you’re in London on 13th March and fancy watching my 15-minute libretto about the forced confession of an accused witch set to music by Dawn Erridge as part of the Operamakers course, do come along. It’s free at the Royal Academy of Music, and you’ll get to hear three other short operas which will premiere at the same time. I think one of the others is a comic opera about sentient bananas so it promises to be a fun and eclectic evening!

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