Witches and Their Demonic Familiars

Witchcraft and Women

Para1The witch hunts of early modern Europe were the most extreme example of the misguided and irrational nature of religion, according to historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks. These witch hunts and prosecutions often showcase early modern Europe’s problematic attitude towards women. From the 1560s to the 1690s, experts such as Teofilo Ruiz report that 80,000-100,000 women, typically elderly, were accused and executed for witchcraft by hanging or burning. People believed these women were committing maleficia, which refers to a “someone who uses magic to do evil things”. Most of early modern society also believed witches engaged in sexual activities with the devil, in addition to stealing unbaptized babies to use in rituals, flying through the night to secret meetings called sabbats, and using curses and spells to harm or even murder others.
Para2Some early modern writers claimed that people who practiced witchcraft were a part of a much larger conspiracy to overthrow Christianity, resulting in witches being seen as the enemies of God and the church. Witchcrafts was a type of heresy. However, a large majority of accused witches were single women who came from the poorest level of society, leading historians to argue that accusations of witchcraft may have been influenced by economic factors. During the early modern period, many of the people accused of witchcraft often closely fit the Halloween and Hollywood stereotype of a witch: older women who were unmarried and deemed socially deviant (Wiesner-Hanks 287).

Animal Familiars

Para3Many of the accused witches were rumored to have an animal familiar to assist them in committing maleficia. Familiars were often thought to be toads or dogs, rather than the modern stereotype of a black cat. Familiars were believed to be given by the devil, usually taking the form of a small animal. These familiars, although evil and demonic, often took a mundane form such as cats, dogs, mice, and toads. Familiars were considered to be any animal that could be commonly found as a household pet. This made it incredibly easy for women to be accused of witchcraft, as sometimes even the presence of a cat or toad in the accused witch’s house could be enough for a death sentence.
Para4The witch’s familiar played a crucial role in early modern witch trials. These relationships between human witch and his or her familiar were seen as the embodiment of a demonic pact. The familiar was essentially the tie that brought together the witch and the devil, however, rather than being unwitting acomplices, familiars were considered demonic creatures with their own agency who sometimes encouraged the witch to do evil and practice maleficia.

Familiars in Witch Trials

Para5Many documented cases exist of accused witches confessing to having a familiar or being in contact with the devil in the form of a household pet. Ina 1645 trial, an accused witch, Helen Clark confesseth that about six weeks since, the devil appeared to her in her home in the likeness of a white dog (Murray 101). In another trial against Agnes Waterhouse in the Essex village of Hatfield Peverell 1566, Waterhouse told prosecutors how she had harmed farm animals, murdered her husband, and kept a pet cat named Sathan to assist her in accomplishing these evils. These documented cases of witch’s familiars from early modern witch trials showcase the crucial role these demonic animals played in the witch hunts and highlights their significance in the public’s fear, which ultimately led to the deaths of thousands of people across Europe.

Toads

Para6In early modern England, the toad held a similarly common position in witchcraft prosecutions. When John Walsh was tried in 1566, court records mention he used toads as familiars. And of course, the opening scene of Shakespeare’s Macbeth features a reference by the second Weird Sister to Paddock, her toad familiar, who summons her away. The toad is an incredibly mundane creature, however its unappealing appearance and reputation of being dirty made it the perfect sidekick for God-hating and devious witches.
Para7This perception persisted across Europe. The early modern Spanish community of Navarre has an especially strong example of toads as familiars. Navarre experienced reports of an increasing number of witches around 1610, accompanied by claims stating that the devil was hosting initiation ceremonies where he gave newly initated witches a toad dressed in men’s clothing. Described as a demon in the form of a toad with its face like a man’s, dressed in finely tailored velvet and cloth (Rojas 719), the animals acted as the new witch’s familiar. Some historians argue that people believed these toads were used to keep the new witches doing the work of the devil. The toads would assist the witches, and in return, the witches fed their familiars with human flesh.
Para8The toad stands out amongst other animal familiars because its venomous property was mentioned regularly in classical, medieval, and early modern natural histories and bestiaries. Physicians throughout Europe were fascinated by the toad’s potential vices and virtues, which may have led to the toad being so commonly associated with witchcraft. Although there were witch trials and witness testimonies that included all sorts of animal familiars, toads appear in over half of Navarre’s local witch trial records.

Key Print Sources

Parish, Helen. Paltrie Vermin, Cats, Mise, Toads, and Weasils: Witches, Familiars, and Human-Animal Interactions in the English Witch Trials. Religions vol. 10, no. 134, 2019.
Rojas, Rochelle. The Witches’ Accomplice: Toads in Early Modern Navarre. Sixteenth Century Journal vol. 51, no. 3, Fall 2020, pp. 719–740.
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, Fourth Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Key Online Sources

Gibson, Marion The Trial of Agnes Waterhouse, Witchraft in Esses, 1566. Essex Records Office. Jul. 2021. https://www.essexrecordofficeblog.co.uk/the-trial-of-agnes-waterhouse-witchcraft-in-essex-1566/.
Murray, M. A. Witches’ Familiars in England. Man vol. 18, no. 1, 1918, pp. 101–104. JSTOR, doi: doi.org/10.2307/2787283.
Ruiz, Teofilo. The Terror of History: The Witch Hunt in Modern Europe. Youtube. Public lecture, University of California at Los Angeles. 28 Feb. 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOQND4fVF_w.

Prosopography

Dawson Zdunich

Dawson Zdunich was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title Witches and Their Demonic Familiars
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Dawson Zdunich, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
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Document status published, peer-reviewed
Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globablink Research Internship
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