Human Animals

A very uncanny fox and badger story comes from an old Japanese source.[61] Kugano Kendo was a clever doctor who lived in Yeddo. One day he was asked to go and see a patient in the country, and when he reached the house in question, which he had never before visited, he found that the master had gone out and he was asked to wait. A page-boy offered him some refreshments after his long journey, and when he was about to thank him for his attentions the boy turned away and, to the doctor's astonishment, he saw the page's face had utterly changed, becoming enormously long and narrow, with a small nose and big mouth and only one eye in the centre of the forehead. Suddenly the apparition vanished. Though courageous by nature this struck the doctor as so extraordinary that he felt inclined to leave the strange house at once. However, he mastered his fears and soon the owner of the house returned. The doctor told him what he had seen and the master burst out laughing and said, "Oh, that boy has been at it again, has he? He always frightens strangers. Did he pull a face like this?" and suiting his actions to his words the man imitated the horrible expression, his face taking the same deformity of one eye in the centre of his forehead, and a foxy snout.

This was too much for the doctor's equanimity. He ran to the front door and called his servants to prepare for the journey home. Then he found that all the servants had run away except one, and outside it was pitch-dark. The remaining servant said he could find a lantern, and presently he appeared out of the darkness with a light in his hand which fell full upon his features. To Kendo's intense horror he noticed the same transformation had taken place in the servant's countenance as had appeared in the faces of the others, and this additional strain being too much for his nerves, he cried out and fell into a swoon.

In the meantime the doctor's friends, growing anxious about his long absence, despatched a search party to find him, and among those who were sent were some of the servants who had accompanied him earlier in the evening. To their surprise, instead of the fine house they had already visited, they found only an old, dirty, tumbledown cottage, which the neighbours told them was always desolate and only inhabited by foxes and tanuki. Nobody dared to pass that way by night. After a long search Doctor Kendo was found lying face downwards in a bamboo grove. Weeks passed before he recovered from his adventure. This story seems to throw a light on what may be called "the workings of transformation," as though a partial change were brought about by some hidden occult force glimmering through the human shape.

The "Roo chawa"[62] describes three kinds of strange wer-animals. Firstly thin ones, with emaciated features, red eyes, long trunks, legs the length of a horse, and a loud cry "like the tone of a bell." These are tanuki. The second variety has a round face, sharp nose, spotted skin and is blind in one eye. Thirdly, there are foxes with large ears, round eyes, pointed cheeks, wide mouths, but without a right arm! This sounds as though the description had been taken during the process of metamorphosis.

The one-eyed beasts seem the most fearsome to encounter in the dark. An ancient monastery was haunted by them. An old man, blind in one eye, arrived there as the priest was murmuring his prayers. He came near enough to stroke the devout man's face, but as he put out his hand to do so the priest protected himself with a knife and chopped off the arm, which proved to be the hairy leg of an old fox.

Another man who passed the night in the same monastery was disturbed by a number of puppy-dogs which ran in and out of the cloisters. Looking through a crack in an old door he saw a woman standing outside. He pierced her through the breast with his sword and she fled, bleeding profusely. A moment later a ball of light fell onto the ground, and when the man ran to see what it was, he found the same old witch. Again he struck at her with his sword and she fled, leaving another pool of blood.

Next day an old one-eyed woman came to the monastery accompanied by a little girl and asked the abbot to read a mass at the funeral of her elder sister.

The abbot, believing all was not right with these people, chased away the woman and child by threatening to strike them with a bamboo cane. That night the village was lit by burning torches and a crowd assembled to pray and read sutras. Temple gongs and kettle-drums resounded, and everyone knew that some mysterious ceremony was being held. The following morning the abbot sent to discover what had taken place and an old dead tanuki, as big as a calf, was dug out of the ground. It was found to be the witch that had been wounded in the monastery. This may be compared with the witch-cat stories of England in the following chapter.

Fox-possession and fox-familiars are common beliefs among the Japanese; women, weak men, and even children suffering from the idea of having been transformed into animals. They are cured by being made to snuff up smoke from a heap of burning refuse, or by drinking weak tea, or swallowing roasted leaves of a certain plant; all these things being detested by foxes, and incidentally no doubt useful in cases of ordinary hysteria. Foxes which take the form of men and women soon resume vulpine shape when fumigated, bathed, or attacked by dogs. Even in the present day, fox-possession has as great a hold on the imagination as in earlier centuries, but it is more widely ascribed to human sorcery. Certain sacred temples in Japan still attract crowds of pilgrims who believe that they are possessed by foxes and who come to these holy places to be cured. The bone of a tortoise's foot held in the left hand is prescribed as a talisman against this fearsome spell—probably also many other of the formulæ useful in cases of witchcraft would be found efficacious.

CHAPTER XII

WITCHES

Amongst the powers with which witches have been credited from time immemorial are those of transforming themselves into various kinds of animals, of transforming other people into animals and of sending forth so-called familiars in various animal shapes. Whether witches can change human beings into animals through sorcery is a question which has exercised the minds of hundreds of writers on demonology and witchcraft, amongst them, to mention a few at random, Bodin, Boguet, James I, Glanvill, Dr. Webster, Reginald Scott, his more famous namesake Sir Walter, and Charles Lamb. The last-named, in his essay on the subject, tells us that he was extremely inquisitive from his childhood about witches and witch-stories, and that it should cause no wonder if the wicked, having been symbolised by a goat, should come sometimes in that body and "assert his metaphor."[63]

In the Middle Ages witches who were condemned to the stake, confessed to having taken the shapes of cats, hares, dogs, horses, and many other animals, being prompted to such changes by the devil, with whom they were in league.

A witch trial took place at Lancaster on the 10th of February, 1633, in which a batch of witches was accused of such dealings.

Evidence was given by Edmund Robinson, son of Edmund Robinson, of Pendle forest, eleven years of age, at Padham, before Richard Shuttleworth and John Starkey, Justices of the Peace, "who upon oath informeth, being examined concerning the great meeting of the witches of Pendle, saith that upon All Saints-day last past, he, this informer being with one Henry Parker a near door-neighbour to him in Wheatley Cave, desired the said Parker to give him leave to gather some bulloes, which he did. In gathering whereof he saw two greyhounds, namely a black and a brown; one came running over the next field towards him, he verily thinking the one of them to be Mr. Nutter's and the other to be Mr. Robinson's, the said gentlemen then having suchlike. And saith the said greyhounds came to him, and fawned on him, they having about their necks either of them a collar, unto which was tied a string: which collars (as this informant affirmeth) did shine like gold. And he was thinking that some either of Mr. Nutter's or Mr. Robinson's family should have followed them, yet seeing nobody to follow them, he took the same greyhounds thinking to course with them. And presently a hare did rise very near before him. At the sight whereof he cried 'Loo, Loo, Loo,' but the dogs would not run. Whereupon he being very angry took them and with the strings that were about their collars, tied them to a little bush at the next hedge, and, with a switch that he had in his hand, he beat them. And instead of the black greyhound Dickenson's wife stood up, a neighbour whom this informer knoweth. And instead of the brown one a little boy whom this informant knoweth not. At which sight this informer being afraid, endeavoured to run away; and being stayed by the woman, namely Dickenson's wife, she put her hand into her pocket, and pulled forth a piece of silver much like to a fair shilling, and offered to give it him to hold his tongue and not tell: which he refused saying, 'Nay, thou art a witch.' Whereupon she put her hand into her pocket again, and pulled out a thing like unto a bridle that jingled, which she put on the little boy's head; which said boy stood up in the likeness of a white horse, and in the brown greyhound's stead. Then immediately Dickenson's wife took the informer before her upon the said horse and carried him to a new house called Hearthstones, being about a quarter of a mile off." Here the boy, Edmund Robinson, was witness to the extraordinary incidents of a feast of witches, all of which he recounted before the judges, and then his father, being called, gave evidence that he had sent his son to fetch home two kine, and as he did not return he went to seek him, finding him eventually "so affrighted and distracted that he neither knew his father, nor did he know where he was, and so continued very nearly a quarter of an hour before he came to himself, when he told the above curious happenings."[64]

The seventeen Pendle forest witches condemned in Lancashire obtained a reprieve and were sent to London, where they were examined by His Majesty himself and the Council.

A witch called Julian Cox, aged about seventy years, was indicted at Taunton, in Somerset, in 1663, for transforming herself into a hare and for other sorcery.

The evidence given to prove that she was a witch was embodied in a narrative deposed to by Mr. Pool, a servant and officer in the court to Judge Archer, then Judge of Assizes at Taunton.

"The first witness was a huntsman, who swore that he went out with a pack of hounds to hunt a hare, and not far from Julian Cox her house, he at last started a hare. The dogs hunted her very close, and the third ring hunted her in view, till at last the huntsman perceiving the hare almost spent, and making toward a great bush he ran on the other side of the bush to take her up, and preserve her from the dogs. But as soon as he laid hands on her, it proved to be Julian Cox, who had her head grovelling on the ground and her globes (as he expressed it) upward. He knowing her, was so affrighted that his hair on his head stood on end, and yet spake to her and asked her what brought her there; but she was so far out of breath, that she could not make him any answer. His dogs also came up with full cry to recover the game and smelt at her, and so left off hunting any farther. And the huntsman went home presently, sadly affrighted."[65]

In a report dated in the latter half of the nineteenth century on the state of the county prison at Dingwall, a statement was made by a fisherman who was imprisoned for assaulting a woman of sixty, whom he accused of bewitching everything he had. She prevented him from catching fish and caused his boat to upset. The other fishermen then refused to work with him as a companion. "She is known in all the neighbourhood to be a witch," he deposed. "She has been seen a hundred times milking the cows in the shape of a hare, though I never saw her do it myself."

"People believe that if anyone gets blood from a witch she can do them no more harm, and that is the reason I cut her with a knife, so that it might go into her as short a way as possible. All I wanted was to get blood," was his quaint way of putting it.

The hare has always been closely associated with witches, and for this reason seems to be of evil augury, though in some parts of the country its foot, and sometimes its head, are used as a protection against sorcery, perhaps on the homeopathic principle.

The cat runs the hare very close in its association with witches, and is a handy animal for transformation purposes, being so frequently met with in this country.

One of the most celebrated Scottish witch-cat trials took place at Caithness when Margaret Nin-Gilbert was interrogated on February 8, 1719, by William Innes, minister of Thurso, and confessed that she was travelling one evening when she was met by the devil in the likeness of a man who "engaged her to take on with him," which she agreed to do. From that time she became familiar with him, and sometimes he appeared to her in the likeness of a huge black horse, sometimes riding a horse, sometimes like a black cloud, and again in the shape of a black hen. She apparently obtained the powers of a witch with the help of this apparition, and the use she made of them appears in the following story told by one William Montgomery, a mason, whose house was invaded by cats in such numbers that his wife and maidservant could not endure to remain in the place.

One night on Montgomery's return he found five cats by the fireside, and the servant told him they were "speaking among themselves."

The cat-witch on the preceding November 28 had climbed in at a hole in a chest, and Montgomery watched his opportunity, intending to cut off her head when she should put it out of the hole. "Having fastened my sword on her neck," he continues, "which cut her, nor could I hold her; having (at length) opened the chest, my servant, William Geddes, having fixed my durk in her hinder quarters by which stroke she was fastened to the chest; yet after all she escaped out of the chest with the durk in her hinder quarter, which continued there till I thought, by many strokes, I had killed her with my sword; and having cast her out dead, she could not be found next morning." Four or five nights after, the servant cried out that the cats had come again, and Montgomery "wrapped his plaid about the cat and thrust the durk through her body, and having fixed the durk in the ground, I drove at her head with the back of an axe until she was dead, and being cast out could not be found next morning."

He further declared that no drop of blood came from the cats, also that they did not belong to anyone in the neighbourhood, although one night he saw eight of them and took this to be witchcraft for certain.

On February 12, Margaret Nin-Gilbert, who lived about half a mile from Montgomery's house, was seen by some of her neighbours to drop one of her legs at her own door, and she being suspected of witchcraft the leg, black and putrefied, was taken before the deputy Sheriff who immediately had the maimed woman arrested and imprisoned. By her own confession she admitted that she was bodily present at Montgomery's house "in the likeness of a feltered cat" and that Montgomery had broken her leg either with his durk or axe, which leg since had fallen off from the other part of her body. Also that one Margaret Olsone was also there in the likeness of a cat, and several other women, and that they were invisible because "the devil did hide and conceal them by raising a dark mist or fog to screen them from being seen."[66]

Sometimes the apparition of a witch as a cat foretells death.

In 1607 a witch of the name of Isobel Grierson was burnt after being accused and convicted of entering the house of Adam Clark, in Prestonpans, in the likeness of his own cat and in the company of a mighty rabble of other cats, which by their noise frightened Adam, his wife, and their maid, the last-named being dragged up and down the stairs by the hair of her head, presumably by the devil in the shape of a black man. Isobel also visited the house of a certain Mr. Brown in the shape of a cat, but once being called upon by name she vanished, but Brown himself died of a disease she had laid upon him.

In 1629 another Isobel, wife of George Smith, was indicted as follows:—

"Item she resett Cristian Grinton, a witch in her house, whom the pannel's husband saw one night to come out at one hole in the roof, in the likeness of a cat, and thereafter transform herself in her own likeness, whereupon the pannel told her husband that it should not fare well with him, which fell out accordingly, for next day he fell down dead at the plough."[67]

The witches of Vernon frequented an old castle in the shape of cats. Three or four brave men determined to pass the night in the stronghold, where they were assailed by the cats and one of them was killed, several of the others being hurt, and many of the cats received wounds. Afterwards the women were found to have returned to human shape and suffered from corresponding gashes.

The witches of Vernon had their imitators in three witches of Strasburg who, in the disguise of huge cats, fell upon a workman. He defended himself courageously and chased away the cats, wounding them. They were found instantaneously transformed into women, badly hurt and in their beds.

Another story describes how several cat-witches tormented a poor labourer, who, wearying of their persistence, drew his broadsword and sent the animals flying. One less nimble than the rest received a cut from the sword which severed one of its hind legs, when, to the labourer's amazement, he discovered on picking up the limb that it was human in shape, and next morning one of the old hags was discovered to have only one leg left. Similar stories of the "repercussion" variety will be found in Chapter XVIII, but they have never been satisfactorily explained.

M. Henri Gelin tells a good story of a witch who transformed herself into a dog.[68]

One winter evening dogs were barking all round a lonely house in Niort far more loudly than usual. The farmer rose from his bed and carefully opened the shutters. In the middle of the yard he saw a black and white greyhound, which apparently was enjoying itself molesting the other dogs, knocking them over with its paws without the least difficulty, and then picking them up in its jaws and throwing them to some distance as soon as they ventured within reach. The farmer drew on his trousers, into the seat of which his wife had sown a horse-chestnut as a talisman against witchcraft, loaded his gun and fired on the animal which fell dead. The next day he rose at an early hour to go and examine the corpse of his prey, and was greatly astonished to see the body of a beautiful woman dressed in gorgeous clothes lying in the very spot on which the dog was shot. Round her neck there hung a rich chain made of five strings of jewels bearing enamelled medallions beautifully chased, and on her fingers were a profusion of precious gems. In order to cover all traces of his involuntary murder, he quickly dug a hole in a corner of the yard and made a pile of faggots above the newly replaced earth. He had only just finished his task when a gentleman came into the yard, and asked whether he had seen a lady pass that way. From the particulars given, the farmer soon felt certain that the woman in question was the witch he had killed. Tremblingly he replied that he had not seen the lady. But a little dog that followed the gentleman ran to the heap of faggots and began turning them over, howling piteously. "You have killed my poor wife," cried the gentleman. "I am certain she came here." But he did not insist on looking into the pile, and presently withdrew, followed by the still whimpering dog.

A sheep is sometimes, but not frequently, chosen as a medium for transformation.

A man who was returning late from the market at Verrières in Poitou, met a lamb, which followed him bleating loudly, at the turn of a footpath crossing a lonely heath. "Poor thing," he said, "you might be devoured by a wolf," and, seizing the lamb by its four legs, he hoisted it on to his shoulders, so as to carry it conveniently. As he approached his house he found the animal began to weigh very heavily. At last he arrived in a perspiration and put down his burden amongst the sheep which had already been penned in the fold. At dawn the next day, he went to look at his new lamb. But in the spot where he had placed it the evening before he found a huge demon, busy stitching straw soles into his shoes. The sorcerer had resumed human shape and, looking very foolish, begged that he would say nothing about his little adventure. But the man seized him by the shoulders, kicked him from behind and chucked him out of the pen, crying, "Get out of this, you evil being." "If only he had made the slightest scratch from which the blood flowed," added the old lady who was telling the story, "the sorcerer would have been cured, and would no longer have been able to transform himself into an animal."

Although witches are able to transform themselves into horses if they wish, they usually prefer to use their powers for transforming other people, and getting the benefit by riding their victims to death.

Margaret Grant, a Scottish witch of the nineteenth century, believed that she was able to transform herself into various animals, and "avers that she was, at times, actually changed by evil-disposed persons into a pony or a hare and ridden for great distances, or hunted by dogs as the case might be."

Joseph Glanvill in his "Sadducismus Triumphatus," tells the story of a "great army of witches" who were charged with performing a feat of horse-transformation on a large scale at Blocula in Sweden in 1669.

A man may be transformed by a woman throwing a magic halter over his head while he is in bed. Then she mounts the horse, and rides to the witches' tryst. If, however, the man-horse can manage to slip the magic bridle off and throw it over her, she becomes a mare, and her victim mounts her and rides till she is exhausted.

At Yarrowfoot a witch-mare, according to one story, was shod in the usual manner and afterwards sold to her own husband. To his surprise, when he removed the bridle, his wife stood before him in human form, wearing horseshoes on her hands and feet.

There are many variants of this story, another woman having been found in bed with horseshoe attachments, and it is difficult to trace the origin of this fantastic idea.

In the neighbourhood of Ostrel in Denmark a man served on a farm, the mistress of which, unknown to him, was a witch. Although she gave him good and wholesome food he never thrived, but became thinner every day. At this, being much troubled, he went to a wise man, to whom he communicated his case. From this man he learnt that his mistress was a witch and that at night, while he slept, she transformed him into a horse, and rode upon him to Troms Church in Norway; so that it was not to be wondered at that his strength decreased. The wise man at the same time gave him an ointment with which to rub his head at night, and said when he fell asleep he would have a violent itching on his head, and then he would wake up and see that he was standing outside Troms Church.

The man did as he had been told, and on waking up the following night, he found that he was standing by the church, holding in his hand a bridle which he had torn off whilst scratching his head. Behind him he saw many horses bound together by each other's tails. Presently his mistress came out and cast a friendly look at him, but he nodded for her to come nearer, and when she stood by, he cast the bridle over her head and she became a handsome mare on the spot. He mounted and rode her home. On the way he called at a farrier's, and made him shoe the mare. When he reached home he told his master that he had been out to buy a fine mare, which would go handsomely in harness with one already in the stables. The master paid him a good round sum for the animal, but when he took off its bridle, there stood his wife with horseshoes on her hands and feet. He turned her straight out of doors, but she never managed to get rid of the horseshoes.

When St. Macarius encountered a poor old woman who had been changed into a horse, he restored her to human shape by sprinkling holy water over her. The same saint acted mercifully in another case of transformation.

A young girl refused to do the bidding of the man who asked her to be his wife. He was so infuriated by her refusal that he arranged with a wizard to turn her into a stoat. A wise man, endeavouring to explain this incident, says, "This was not a genuine transformation, but was an illusion of the devil, who so affected the imagination of the girl and the bystanders, that she appeared to them in the form of a stoat, although she was still a woman in reality."

The victim of the enchantment was then taken before the holy man of the name of Macarius, who, on account of his saintliness, could not suffer deception of the devil's wiles. He looked upon the maiden and saw that she was a human being and no stoat, and thus, uttering a prayer, freed her from the spell. This cure is of the hypnotic variety, in which several people are under the mental spell of one other.

Reginald Scott tells the story of a woman who sold an egg to a man who, when eating it, speedily turned into an ass. For three years she rode the animal to market. It was in the city of Salamin in Cyprus where a ship arrived laden with merchandise. Many of the sailors went ashore in the hope of procuring fresh provisions. A certain sturdy young Englishman went to a woman's shop some little way from the town, to see whether she could let him have some new-laid eggs. She promised to do so and went off to fetch them, but she was away so long that the young sailor called out that she must please make haste, as the tide was going out and he might be left behind when his ship set sail. At last she came out with the eggs and told him to come back to her house if the ship had gone. The sailor made the best of his way back to the vessel, but being hungry, ate an egg on the way. He was then struck dumb and his wits seemed to have left him. When he reached the side of the vessel and tried to go aboard, the mariners beat him back with cudgels crying, "What lacks the ass?" and "Whither the devil does the ass want to come?" Then the sailor realised that he had been bewitched by the woman's eggs he had eaten, and had turned into a donkey. Finding it impossible to board the ship and remembering the witch's words, he went back to her house and there served her for the space of three years, carrying the burdens she laid on his back.[69] Here no doubt the egg is used merely as an instrument for inducing a certain frame of mind in the victim. It may be presumed that the witch's words of suggestion were equally necessary in bringing about the transformation.

The sorceress Meroc in "The Metamorphosis or Golden Ass of Apuleius," had the power to change, by one word only, her lover into a beaver. "She likewise changed into a frog an innkeeper who was her neighbour and of whom she was on that account envious, and now that old man, swimming in a tub of his own wine, and merged in the dregs of it, calls on his ancient guests with a hoarse and courteously croaking voice."

"She likewise changed one of the advocates of the court into a ram because he had declaimed against her, and now that ram pleads causes."[70]

M. Henri Gelin, whose researches on Poitevin legends and folklore are very valuable,[71] discusses the conditions under which metamorphosis takes place, saying it is entirely involuntary and is the result of an agreement entered into with infernal powers. The soul of the sorcerer is supposed to remain in a state of distinct entity. But the narrators of these stories have done little to make clear the actual process which takes place when the transformation occurs of a man into a wolf, a sheep, or a colt, or a woman (who seems to be credited with gentler characteristics) into a goat, a bitch, or a hind. Perhaps the human body remains temporarily deprived of its soul, which, entering a new shape, substitutes itself for the obscure and undeveloped soul of the animal, or perhaps the wizard's body enjoys the faculty of anatomically modifying its organs, and varying its aspects something in the manner of the caterpillar which turns into a moth. Who shall say?

A shepherdess in the district of Niort noticed when driving her flock home that it had become augmented by the presence of a black sheep, the origin of which she could not trace. She penned up the extra animal with her own in the shed, and bolted the door, rejoicing at the addition to her flock. But as soon as night had fallen, a woman's voice was heard singing in the sheep's shed. The tune was a plaintive one, interspersed now and again with strident and prolonged laughter. Not one of the servants or neighbours dared to open the shed and face the flock to see who could be singing like that. In hushed voices they said "It's a witch!" The next day at the usual hour of departure, the shepherdess, in great dread of what she might see, partly opened the shed door. The black sheep rushed like a whirlwind into the open and was gone. Now and again, however, the apparition returned to the farm in the shape of a woman, clapping her hands and laughing loudly as though to mock at the people who had allowed her to escape so easily.

The following legend of a white hind comes from the same district, Souché, two miles from Niort. Its peculiar characteristic is that the young girl, who complains to her mother about the hounds chasing her, appears to be quite aware of what is happening to her in her dual personality of woman and hind at the same moment, an important detail when regarded in the light of scientific occultism.

The story is told by Gelin and is very popular in Poitou. The heroine is a girl by day and a white hind by night. The pack of hounds belonging to her brother Renaud chase her in the forest. She complains of this to her mother who begs Renaud to call back the pack. But it is too late. The white hind is captured and killed. Her palpitating flesh is stripped from the carcase and prepared as a dish of venison, and next day when the guests sit down to the feast, they are terrified to hear a woman's voice which they recognise as that of their absent sister, murmuring, "Alas! my breasts are lying on platters of gold." Then, raising her tone, she announces that Renaud's soul is forfeit and that his name is written up on the gates of hell. At the sound of her words Renaud falls down dead and his mother goes off in a swoon.

"La Blanche Biche," as the story is called in the original, is told in verse which may be rendered roughly as follows:—

This is a far more harrowing story than the Yorkshire legend of a woman who turns into a white doe, which is found in Wordsworth's "The White Doe of Rylstone."

Burke has a very different version of the famous and spotless White Doe of Rylstone,[72] the animal being gifted with human faculties rather than appearing in human form, and the story having some affinity with those of the fairy-godmother class. This beautiful white doe belonged to Emily, the only daughter of Richard Norton of Rylstone, who had nine warrior sons. The youngest of them, Edward by name, had made a present of the doe to his sister and the animal was called Blanche on account of her spotless white skin. She followed her young mistress everywhere and was like a human companion. So great was her intelligence that she was thought to be a benevolent witch or fairy, perhaps rather a sprite bewitched in animal form.

One day she leads her mistress a long way from home, to a spot beside a brooklet which is held by the people of the neighbourhood to be haunted. Having reached the desired destination, the doe lies down to rest and Emily does likewise. Presently she falls into a kind of dream, in which it seems to her that the brook boils and bubbles up and a wraith of mist rises on the surface which gradually takes the shape and outlines of a beautiful woman.

This spirit warns Emily in a vision of coming disaster to her beloved father and eight of her brothers. She sees them done to death by the axe. Meanwhile the doe lies immovable in a kind of trance and it may well be thought that her real womanly self is seen by Emily in its natural shape.

Soon afterwards Emily is informed by Edward that her father and eight of her brothers are on the point of breaking out into open rebellion against the Sovereign of England and that it is necessary for him to join them, although doing so goes against his convictions, as he is loyal to Queen Elizabeth. Nothing that Emily can do or say dissuades him from his decision, and she parts from him in great grief.

At first the rebels succeed in their projects, but presently their attacks fail and they are forced to retreat. A rumour reaches Emily that all the Nortons have been captured and condemned to death and that the rebellion is over.

In the hope of saving her father and brothers, Emily sets out, accompanied by Blanche, to sue Queen Elizabeth for pardon on behalf of her relatives. On the long and perilous journey to Court, Blanche again acts as her adviser, and gives her almost human help in moments of difficulty, and so charmed is the Queen by the beauty of the suppliant and her intelligent animal comrade, that she sends Lord Leicester post-haste to York with a reprieve for the Nortons.

Unfortunately the messenger arrives too late to save any member of the family except the youngest son, Edward, Emily's favourite, and thus the beautiful human doe is instrumental in saving him, at least, from the scaffold.

CHAPTER XIII

FAMILIARS

From witch stories it is only a short step to stories about witches' familiars, for nearly all sorcerers are gifted with the power of sending out a spirit or second soul to do the work of the evil one. A distinction has therefore to be made between the witch in animal form and the external soul of the witch sent forth in the shape of an animal while she retains her human appearance.

The "familiar" or "imp," whether a real animal or spirit in animal form, stands ever ready at the sorcerer's elbow waiting to do his bidding. The "life" of the familiar is bound up with that of the witch, and if the former be wounded, the latter will suffer from an injury in a corresponding part of the body. Death to the familiar means death to the witch, and the way to get rid of the spell is to kill the double of the witch. To this class belong some of the most interesting phenomena, as well as the most inexplicable, dealing with the human animal theory.

In one case a blue butterfly was seen to flutter over a certain farm, and as affairs there had not been going at all well, it was looked upon with dread and suspicion as the bringer of evil. For three weeks the insect hovered about and during that period "no butter came." Then the farmer decided to take steps to break the enchantment. Armed with a wet towel he sallied forth to chase the alleged familiar and, cleverly flapping his cloth, he brought down the butterfly at a swoop. Precisely at that moment a woman, who was suspected of being a witch, was found lying dead outside the door of her house close by, and after the double event there was no further trouble with the churning.

Matthew Hopkins of Manningtree, Essex, a witch-finder of ill-fame, was the cause of bringing thousands of supposed witches to judgment and so to the stake. He was paid 20s. in each town he visited and managed to rid of its suspicious characters, and he appears to have found his profession extraordinarily lucrative. In 1644 he was commissioned by Parliament to make a circuit through several counties with a view to discovering witches. He travelled in the company of several boon companions for three years and was instrumental in having sixteen persons hanged at Yarmouth, forty at Bury and at least sixty in other parts of Suffolk, Norfolk and Huntingdonshire.

During a notorious trial of a number of witches at Chelmsford, Essex, on July 29th, 1645, Hopkins made a deposition about an alleged witch, Elizabeth Clarke, who confessed that she had known the devil intimately for more than six years and that he visited her between three and five times a week. She invited Hopkins and his companions, one of whom was a man called Sterne, to stay at her house for a time until she could call up one of her white imps for them to see. Presently there appeared on the scene an imp like a dog, white and with sandy spots, which seemed to be very fat and plump, with short legs. The animal forthwith vanished away. The said Elizabeth gave the name of this imp as Jarmara. And immediately afterwards there appeared another imp, which she called Vinegar Tom, in the shape of a greyhound with long legs. The said Elizabeth then remarked that the next imp should be black in colour and that it should come for Master Sterne (the other witness already mentioned), and it appeared as she promised, but presently vanished without leaving a sign. The last imp of all to come before the spectators was a creature in the shape of a polecat, but the head somewhat bigger. The said Elizabeth then disclosed to the informant that she had five imps of her own. And two other imps with which she had dealings belonged to a certain Beldame Anne West.[73]

The said Matthew Hopkins, when going from the house of a Mr. Edwards of Manningtree, to his own house, one night between nine and ten o'clock, accompanied by his favourite greyhound, noticed the dog give a sudden leap and run off as though in full course after a hare. Hastening to see what the greyhound pursued so eagerly, he espied a white thing about the size of a kitten, and the panting dog was standing aloof from the creature. By and by the imp or kitten began to dance about and around the said greyhound and, viciously approaching him, bit or tore a piece of flesh off the dog's shoulder.

Coming later into his own yard, the informant saw a black thing proportioned like a cat, only that it was thrice as big, sitting on a strawberry bed and fixing its luminous eyes on him. But when he went towards it, it leaped suddenly over the palings and ran towards the informant as he thought, but instead, it fled through the yard with his greyhound in hot pursuit after it to a great gate which was "underset with a pair of tumbrell strings," and it did throw the said gate wide open and then vanished. And the said greyhound returned again to the informant shaking and trembling exceedingly.

Sterne gave evidence on the same day, and much to the same effect, but said that the white imp was like a cat but not so big, and when he asked Elizabeth whether she was not afraid of her imps she answered, "What! do you think I am afraid of my children?" and she called the imp Jarmara as having red spots, and spoke of two more called Sack and Sugar. Four other witnesses confirmed the story practically in its entirety.

Elizabeth Clarke herself gave evidence then, and said Anne West had sent her a "thing like a little kitlyn," which would obtain food for her. Two or three nights after this promise, a white thing came to her in the night, and the night after a grey one spoke to her and said it would do her no hurt and would help her to get a husband. After various charges against the said Elizabeth Clarke and her accomplice, Elizabeth Gooding, Anne Leech, a third woman accused of witchcraft, deposed on April 14th that she and the other two accused sent their respective grey, black and white imps to kill cattle belonging to various neighbours, and that later they had sent them to kill neighbours' children and she added that her imps spoke to her in a hollow voice which she plainly understood, and that these accused witches had met together at the house of the said Elizabeth Clarke, when a book was read "wherein she thinks there was no goodness."

Another woman suspected of witchcraft was Helen Clark who confessed on April 11th that the devil had appeared to her in the likeness of a white dog, and that she called her familiar Elimanzer and that she fed him with milk-pottage and that he spoke to her audibly and bade her deny Christ.

With the witch Anne West was implicated her daughter Rebecca West, who, however, was acquitted, and the notorious Matthew Hopkins deposed that she had told him of visiting the house of Clarke with her mother, and that they had found Leech, Gooding, and Helen Clark, and that the devil had appeared in the shape of a dog, afterwards in the shape of two kittens, then in the shape of two dogs, and that the said familiars did homage in the first place to the said Elizabeth Clarke and slipped up into her lap and kissed her, and then went and kissed all that were in the room except the said Rebecca, who was then made to swear on a book that she would not reveal what she saw or heard—on pain of the torments of hell, and that afterwards the devil came and kissed her and promised to marry her, and she sent him to kill a neighbour's child, of the name of Hart, who died within a fortnight.

Susan Sparrow, who gave her evidence on the 25th of April, said that the house in which she lived with one Mary Greenleif, was haunted by a leveret which usually came and sat before the door, which, when coursed by a dog, never stirred, "and just when the dog came at it, he skipped over it and turned about and stood still, and looked on it, and shortly after that the dog languished and died."

Another of the witches, called Margaret Moone, had a familiar "in the likeness of a rat for bigness and shape, but of a greyer colour." She confessed to two of the witnesses that she had twelve imps and called these by such names as Jesus, Jockey, Mounsier, Sandy, Mrs. Elizabeth, and Collyn, etc. Moone was a "woman of very bad fame," who confessed to many crimes, especially of causing the death of animals and children.

Rose Hallybread, who died in gaol before execution, was accused of being implicated with Joyce Boanes in sending four familiars to the house of a carpenter, Robert Turner, whose servant was then taken sick and "crowed perfectly like a cock, sometimes barked like a dog," sang tunes, groaned, and struggled with such strength that five strong men were needed to hold him. Boanes confessed that her imp made the victim bark like a dog, Hallybread's imp caused him "to sing sundry tunes in great extremity of pains," and Susan Cork compelled him to crow. The torture was inflicted because Turner's servant had refused to give Susan Cork a sack full of chips.

Anne Cate, another of the witches who was executed at Chelmsford, said she had three familiars like mice and a fourth like a sparrow. They were called James, Prickeare, Robyn, and Sparrow, and she sent them to kill both cattle and human beings.

It was thought impossible to kill these familiars, and one Goff, a glover and very honest man of Manningtree, confessed to passing Anne West's house about four o'clock on a moonlight morning and seeing her door was open, he looked into the house. "Presently there came three or four little things in the shape of black rabbits leaping and skipping about him, who, having a good stick in his hand, struck at them thinking to kill them, but could not, but at last caught one of them in his hand, and holding it by the body, he beat the head of it against his stick, intending to beat the brains out of it; but when he could not kill it that way, he took the body in one hand and the head in another and endeavoured to wring off the head, and as he wrung and stretched the neck of it, it came out between his hands like a lock of wool." Then he tried to drown it in a spring, but kept falling down. At last he crept to the water on hands and knees, holding the familiar under the water for a good space. But as soon as he let go it sprang out of the water up into the air and so vanished.

He went and asked Anne West why she had set her imps on him to molest and trouble him, but she said "they were sent out as scouts upon another design."[74]

Joan Cariden, widow, examined September 25, 1645, said, that about three-quarters of a year ago, as she was in bed about twelve or one of the clock in the night there lay a rugged soft thing on her bosom which was very soft, and she thrust it off with her hand; and she said that when she had thrust it away she thought God forsook her, for she could never pray so well as she could before, and further she said that she verily thought it was alive. Examined further, she said the Devil came to her in the shape of a black rugged dog in the night-time and crept into bed with her and spoke to her in mumbling language. The next night he came again and required her to deny God and lean on him.

Jane Hott, widow and associate of the above, also examined on September 25, 1645, confessed that a thing like a hedgehog had usually visited her, and when it lay on her breast she struck it off with her hand, and that it was as soft as a cat.

In 1664 one Elizabeth Style, a widow, of Bayford, was examined at Stoke Trister, Somerset, before Robert Hunt, for witchcraft.

One of the witnesses, Nicholas Lambert, examined on January 26 of that year, deposed to having watched the prisoner in company with William Thick and William Read of Bayford. The informant sat near the prisoner by the fire at three o'clock in the morning and was reading "The Practice of Piety," when he noticed "there came from her head a glistening bright fly about an inch in length, which pitched at first in the chimney and then vanished. In less than a quarter of an hour after, there appeared two flies more, of a less size and another colour, which seemed to strike at the informant's hand in which he held his book, but missed it. He looked steadfastly at the prisoner and perceived her countenance to change and to become very black and ghastly, the fire also at the same time changing its colour; whereupon the informants, Thick and Read, conceiving that her familiar was then about her, looked at her poll, and seeing her hair shake very strangely, took it up, and then a fly like a great Millar flew out from the place and pitched on the table board and then vanished away." When asked what it was that flew out of her poll the accused said it was a butterfly, and asked them why they had not caught it. She confessed that it was her familiar and that was the usual time when her familiar came to her.[75]

One Alice Duke, alias Manning, of Wincanton, in Somerset, who was tried in 1664 for witchcraft, confessed that her familiar visited her "in the shape of a little cat of a dunnish colour, which is as smooth as a want," and that "her familiar doth commonly suck her right breast about seven at night," when she fell into a kind of trance.

Margaret and Phillip Flower, daughters of Joan Flower, were tried for witchcraft near Belvoir Castle and executed at Lincoln on March 11, 1618, on the most extraordinary charges.[76]

Phillip Flower, examined on the 4th of February previously, said that her mother and sister "maliced" the Earl of Rutland, his Countess and their children, because her sister Margaret was put out of the ladies' service of laundry. Phillip thereupon brought from the Castle the right glove of the Henry Lord Ross and gave it to her mother, "who presently rubbed it on the back of her spirit Rutterkin, and then put it into hot boiling water, afterwards she pricked it often and buried it in the yard, wishing Lord Ross might never thrive, and so her sister Margaret continued with her mother, where she often saw the cat Rutterkin leap on her shoulder and suck her neck."

Margaret corroborated the story, and added that after the sorcery Lord Ross fell sick within a week. She also said that her mother and she and her sister agreed to bewitch the Earl and Countess so that they might have no more children, being angry with the Countess for telling her she was no longer to live at the Castle, and who, giving her forty shillings, a bolster and a mattress, bade her sleep at home.

Then she took wool from the mattress and a pair of gloves given her by one of the Castle servants and put them into warm water, mingling them with some blood and stirring it together. Then she took the wool and gloves out of the water and rubbed them on the body of Rutterkin, the cat, saying the Lord and Lady should have no more children or it should be long first.

She further confessed that her mother told her to bring a piece of Lady Katherine's—the earl's daughter's—kerchief, and her mother put it in hot water and taking it out rubbed it on Rutterkin, "bidding him fly and go." Whereupon Rutterkin whined and cried "mew," and she said Rutterkin had no power to hurt Lady Katherine.

Examined on the 25th of February, before Francis Earl of Rutland, Francis Lord Willoughby of Eresby, Sir George Manners, and Sir William Pelham, Phillip Flower confessed to having a familiar spirit in the form of a white rat, and gave her soul to it, and it promised to do her good and cause one Thomas Simpson to love her.

The mother of these girls, Margaret Flower, being examined at the same time and place, confessed to two familiar spirits, one white and the other spotted black.

She further said she had been visited in Lincoln gaol by four devils, between eleven o'clock and midnight, about the 30th January. One stood at the foot of her bed, with a black head like an ape, and spoke to her, though she could not understand his meaning. The other three were the cat Rutterkin, Little Robin, and Spirit. She confirmed what her daughters had said about Lord Ross, and said that after she rubbed the glove on the spirit Rutterkin she threw it into the fire and burnt it.

One of the witnesses, Anne Baker of Rothsford, who was concerned in the case of the death of Lord Ross, son of the Earl of Rutland, when examined on March 1st, 1618, by the Earl and Sir George Manners and Samuel Fleming, Doctor of Divinity, made the following curious statements in the course of her confession of witchcraft.

She said she saw a hand appear to her and heard a voice in the air say "Anne Baker, save thyself, for tomorrow thou and thy master must be slain," and the next day her master and she were in a cart together and suddenly she saw a flash of fire, and said her prayers, and the fire went away, and shortly after a crow came and perched upon her clothes, and she said her prayers again and bade the crow to go to whom he was sent, and the crow went to her master and did beat him to death, and she with her prayers recovered him to life, but he was sick a fortnight after, and if she had not had more knowledge than he, both of them, and the cattle, would have been killed.

Another witness at the same trial, Joan Willimott, confessed to having a spirit she called Pretty, and she declared that a shepherd, Gamaliel Greete, had a spirit like a white mouse put into him in his swearing; and that if he did look upon anything with an intent to hurt it it should be hurt, and she said further that in the home of the Flowers she had seen two spirits, one like a rat and the other like an owl.

The basic belief that it is possible to send forth a familiar to wreak harm on others is found fully developed in black magic, and to such occult powers no doubt many strange phenomena may be attributed.

A peculiarly uncanny story about a witch and her familiar comes from Poitou. A young man who lived near Champdenois, went to spend the evening with some friends. He was jumping over a stone fence which separated the neighbouring estates, when a familiar settled on his back. The young man caught hold of the demon with all his strength and strangled him, flinging him on the ground, where he lay apparently lifeless. Curiosity induced the young man to lift the inert body on to his shoulders, as he wished to look at it by candlelight and show it to his friends.

When he arrived at his friends' house the inmates were sitting in a circle about the hearth and the mistress of the house was spinning, surrounded by her maids. They all looked wonderingly at the demon, but the mistress appeared to be strangely ill at ease.

"I believe," said the young fellow, "it's a sorcerer. There's only one way of finding out. We'll put it in the fire, then we shall know what sort of being it is."

When she heard this cruel suggestion the mistress gripped the arms of her chair in obvious anxiety and let her spindle drop to the ground, saying she was feeling very ill. When the demon was put on to the glowing cinders she shrieked out and was forced to confess, in a shamefaced manner, that she had been wandering in the woods that evening in the shape of an animal, and that the young man had captured her double. Whether this witch intended to work harm is not divulged.

The Kaju wizards make familiars by digging up a corpse and giving it medicine, which restores it to life. They run a hot needle up the back of the head and slit the tongue. The familiar then speaks with inarticulate sound and is sent out by them to do harm. This is probably another form of ritual akin to black magic.

A beautiful enchantress and priestess lived among the natives of Nicaragua and was served by many animals over whom she had extraordinary powers. She also had in her service an old man and woman. She transformed them into youthful beings, with large expanding pinions, and clothed them in tiger- and deer-skins, adorned with richly coloured plumage.

Another and more exalted form of the familiar was the Daemon or Genius, a kind of spirit which, according to the beliefs of the ancients, presided over the actions of mankind. Man was thus said to have a good and an evil presiding spirit. The genius of Socrates, for instance, constantly gave him information and kept him from the commission of crime or impiety.

CHAPTER XIV

TRANSFORMATION IN FOLK-LORE AND FAIRY-TALE

In folk-lore and mythological legends all animals are originally human and most human beings are able to turn into animals. Women who married tigers, women who gave birth to serpents, men who became goats, cows or sheep, frog-princes and monkey-servants, abound in the standard fairy-tales of almost every country.

Grecian women are said to change their cold lovers into donkeys, Persian princesses, on the contrary, cause their too passionate adorers to metamorphose into numerous animal shapes and Circe, disgusted with the depraved conduct of the companions of Ulysses, changed them into swine and shut them up in sties. The story of Circe typifies, of course, the fact that man's lower nature is the animal part of him, and the story of Malec Muhammed, which follows, points the same moral.

A repetition of the well-known Circe story needs no apology in a book which deals at length with the subject of transformation. Circe was the daughter of Sol and Perse, and was celebrated for her skill in magic. She married a prince of Colchis, and then murdered him to obtain his kingdom. Being expelled by her subjects for her crime, she was carried away by her father to Aea, an island on the coast of Italy, which Ulysses visited on his return from the Trojan War. His companions, giving way to excess, were changed into swine by Circe's magic potions. Ulysses was himself made immune from her spells by a herb called Moly, given to him by the god Mercury, and he demanded that his companions should be restored. Circe complied with his request. Eurylochus and his companions found Circe's palace in an open space in a wood, and Ulysses had the following account from the lips of Eurylochus:—

"All about were wolves and lions," he said, "yet these harmed not the men, but stood up on their hind-legs, fawning upon them, as dogs fawn upon their master when he comes from his meal, because he brings the fragments with him that they love. And the men were afraid. And they stood in the porch and heard the voice of Circe as she sang with a lovely voice and plied the loom. Then said Polites (who was dearest of all his comrades to Ulysses), 'Someone within plies a loom, and sings with a loud voice. Some goddess is she, or woman. Let us make haste and call.'

"So they called to her, and she came out and beckoned to them that they should follow. So they went, in their folly. And she bade them sit, and mixed for them a mess, red wine, and in it barley meal and cheese and honey, and mighty drugs withal, of which, if a man drank, he forgot all that he loved. And when they had drunk she smote them with her wand. And lo! they had of a sudden the heads and the voices and the bristles of swine, but the heart of a man was in them still. And Circe shut them in sties, gave them mast and acorns and cornel to eat."

And Eurylochus fled back to the ship to tell Ulysses what had befallen his comrades.[77]

Circe also changed Picus into a bird, when he did not respond to her advances.