"By the early modern period learned ideas about the contract made between demon familiar and witch accreted into a stereotype which would have been famailiar to all officials who interrogated magical practitioners on charges of witchcraft or sorcery. The stereotype depicted the demon familiar making a variety of contractual demands in return for his magical services. The two core demands, which together comprised the ‘classical’ pact, were the witch to renounce her Christianity and that she pledge her soul to him. Other ancillary demands (which were often made at the sabbath) were, among others, that the witch marry him and/or have sexual relations with him; that she serve and worship him; that she allow herself to be re-named by him; that she give him her blood; that she permit herself to be marked by him and the participate in acts of exhumation and cannibalism"
Emma Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic
No comments:
Post a Comment