"That's a Familiar Name"

Agnes Waterhouse "brought her this Cat in her apron and taught her as she was instructed by her grandmother, telling her that she must call him Sathan and give him of her blood and bread and milk as before." This is what came out in 1566 trial, after who knows what kinds of abominable "questioning" she was put to. But Mother Waterhouse of Chensford, Essex, became the first woman in England to be executed for Witchcraft.

Familiar spirits in the form of what we now would call pets served as a hallmark of the person who had truck with the devil. This small post is dedicated to these creatures and what the "witches" called them.

Ursula Kempe of Chelmsford, in her February 1582 trial, told of her grey cat named Tyffin, her black cat named Jacke, her white lamb named Tyttey, and her black toad named Pygine

Elizabeth Chandler of Huntingdonshire, 1646 called her familiar Trillibub

Jane Wallis, also of Huntingdonshire, called hers Grizell Gridigut (unsure whether this is one or two names)

In Thomas Potts' Wondrous Discoverie of Witches in the County of Lancaster in 1612 (1613) we hear of the Pendle witches. Of Jennet Device we hear that " shee had seene her Spirit sundrie times come unto her said Mother in her own house, called Malking-Tower, in the likenesse of a browne Dogge, which she called Ball..." Pott's also spoke of James Device's familiar "Dandy" who came most often in the form of a brown dog. The Lancaster witches also included Anne Chattox whose familiar was "Fancy" and Elizabeth Demdike's "Tibbs."

Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, told of the familiars "Holt who came like a white kitling, Farmara who came like a fat spaniel with no legs at all, Vinegar Tom, a long-legged greyhound with a head like an ox."  Then there were Sacke and Sugar, a black rabbit; Newes a polecat, finally Elemanzer, Pyewacket, Peck-in-the-crown. For Hopkins, the very bizarreness of these monikers were proof positive that the devil was in this precise detail.

When I hear these names, I think one of two things. Either that the poor woman (some men were tried but mostly women) was so exceedingly tortured that she pulled some strange sobriquet out of her nether brain. Or I hear echoes of names murmured with love between a woman and her dog, her cat, her rabbit, echoes of this bond we have with the animals who grace our homes. A love that is safer now than it was four or five hundred years ago, apparently.

The garrett is too small even for a cat (yes, really) but I have been known to idly daydream a name for one, two, five or fourteen cats (we cannot let the Cardinal beat us!) : Quincy Quintus Quincunx; Floralilly Sunday; Dimplee Dapple O'Deary; Jig-a-leg the Lollygagger; Cuddlekin Love-a-bye... whatever would a Thomas Potts or a Matthew Hopkins have made of such names? My fate would surely have been sealed. 

What is your familiar's name? What would it be if you had one?