Weasels appear to be magical creatures for a variety of reasons:
Because they are so tiny, like a fairy creature, their ability to bring down a much larger animal appears to be magical—witchcraft. (Fairies were once understood as potentially very dangerous.)
A legend exists (it happens to be untrue) that weasels hypnotize their prey with their “evil gaze” like a snake-charmer. This only adds to their sinister reputation.
Sleek, slim, with tails as long as the rest of their bodies, weasels resemble furry snakes with legs. Like snakes, they burrow in Earth, disappearing within and then suddenly popping out. Their size makes them look like creatures that should be prey, not predator. Brave, fearless killers despite their size, weasels look like a magical blend of cat and snake.
Weasels in Northern climates change colors magically to blend with the seasons. Usually light brown with a white belly in warm weather, many species turn snow white in winter.
Weasels cannot be contained. Houdinis of the animal world, they wriggle snake-like out of cages and confinement, disappear into holes in Earth, leap and climb to precarious heights, and twist their limber bodies into all kind of gymnastic feats. Quiet, stealthy, and fast, weasels suddenly jump out like jack-in-the-boxes: pop goes the weasel!
What seems to disturb people most, and the reason why ferrets are banned as pets in places like California, is their manner of killing and eating. People perceive that weasels enjoy killing, have fun with it and are needlessly blood-thirsty, leaving devastation in their wake.
There’s a vestige of truth in this observation but it’s also misunderstood and misinterpreted.
As tiny creatures that kill larger animals, of course what they’ve killed is too much for them to eat (and weasels, unlike wolves, are solitary hunters; there’s no group feast) so, typically, a weasel takes a few bites (more likely a few sips of blood) and then moves on. People see weasels as blood-thirsty, vampiric, murderous creatures and dub them “wasteful killers.” (Of course, this is all relative. From a hyena’s perspective, humans must be incredibly wasteful: we don’t grind up bones and eat them, the way they do.)
It’s difficult to understand weasels’ habits unless you understand weasels. They may as well be poster animals for what was once labeled hyperactivity. Weasels and ferrets in action resemble the cartoon character, “the Tasmanian devil.” Smart, fun, dizzyingly fast, they never stop moving, bouncing, playing—or at least not until they pass out from exhaustion, only to jump back into action as soon as they are refreshed. Not only their bodies but their minds are constantly working. Lively, joyous, curious, not shy: they are extremely fun animals to watch and play with, but they can be dangerous pets. With very low thresholds of boredom, their minds must be constantly engaged. Unlike many cats, dogs, or even snakes and rabbits, ferrets cannot be left alone to sleep or wait for the fun to begin. Left to their own devices, they will escape from any cage and cause havoc in their wake in their desire for fun, adventure, and stimulation.
Weasels possess an extremely high metabolic rate; they need small amounts of food protein more frequently than slower, more sedate, less active creatures. For these tiny creatures, even a few bites are sufficient. Squirrels cache their nuts, leopards store their meat, but this isn’t the nature of the speedy little weasel. It doesn’t think about what’s been left behind but searches for something new. When it’s hungry, it kills again. It may lap blood from its victim’s throat for a quick burst of energy, lending it its reputation as a vampire. (This nature is common to weasels, polecats, and ferrets.)
Despite its name, the European ferret is originally native to the Middle East and North Africa and was domesticated there several thousand years ago. Ferrets are also commonly called polecats, indicating the confusion between cats and weasels. Once upon a time, the classification of species was based on observation, not genetics. Cats and ferrets were perceived as being closely related, although that’s not scientifically true. The same name, “catta,” was used to indicate both ferrets and cats. In old writings, it’s difficult to determine to which the word refers. To add to the confusion, there are wild species known as polecats that are also identified as popular witches’ familiars. These polecats dwell in woods, swamps and marshes, making dens in stream banks or under tree roots.
Ferrets originally played roles not dissimilar from pet cats. Long before cats became common in Europe, ferrets were used to keep homes and storehouses safe from mice, rats, and other vermin. Weasels were famously used as ratcatchers in ancient Rome.
In some places, ferrets are third in popularity as pets, following only dogs and cats. However, there is a reason cats, once they were well distributed geographically, drastically overtook the role once played by ferrets. Adult ferrets behave like crazed kittens. The phrase “curiosity killed the cat” probably applies to ferrets more than it does to felines. With more curiosity than common sense, ferrets get into a lot of trouble. They must be supervised: they get into holes in the walls, behind household appliances; every year ferrets are killed when they sneakily climb inside pullout sofas and are then accidentally crushed.
Weasels are associated with knowledge: they can’t get enough, even when it isn’t beneficial to them. They possess an unstoppable urge to know. This concept survives in the English language when we say someone “weaseled” or “ferreted out” information.
Mythologically speaking, weasels are associated with magic, witchcraft, prophesy, sex, reproduction, death, battle, and healing:
Because of their shape, weasels are associated with human genitalia.
Because they slip easily in and out of Earth, weasels were understood as messengers between the realms of daily reality, the after-life and the spirit world. Fearless, smart, and persistent, nothing will stop them from accomplishing a mission.
Because they can dig their way out of anything, and escape from any confinement, they are associated with successful childbirth, their powers beseeched to quicken a child stalled in the womb or birth canal.
In the North American Pacific Northwest, the mink (a form of weasel) is the embodiment of the cultural trickster hero. He prepares Earth for human habitation. Mink differs from other trickster heroes like Coyote, Raven or Rabbit because of his suave, amorous, untiring nature; he is the lover-boy supreme!
In Apuleius’ tale The Golden Ass, a man is paid to guard a corpse from Thessalian witches. The witch ultimately approaches, stealthily and successfully, in the form of a weasel. She gets what she wants and simultaneously manages to play an enormous trick on the hero of the story, too. (See CREATIVE ARTS: Literature: The Golden Ass.)
According to Greek myth, Hera sought to prevent or at least painfully delay Hercules’ mother, Alcmene, from giving birth to him. Depending on the version told, she posted either a childbirth deity or a pack of witches before Alcmene’s birth chamber with instructions to delay her at all cost. Seven days of hard labor later, Alcmene was in agony and near death. The plot was finally foiled by Alcmene’s devoted servant, Galanthis, who stopped the jinx with a trick. In the midst of all the angst and misery, in the presence of the goddess or witches, Galanthis laughed with gusto. Her laughter broke the spell; they assumed Alcmene had given birth and ceased their spell-work. Hera punished Galanthis by transforming her into a weasel, as a rebuke for trickery and too much cleverness. Weasel-shaped Galanthis ran off to the midwife-witch goddess Hecate, who offered admiration and respect for Galanthis’ ability to provide successful, safe delivery despite formidable odds. Hecate adopted the weasel as her sacred servant.
Flies
Flies play various roles in witchcraft: as witches’ familiars; as witches’ weapons; as the vehicle for the shaman’s wandering soul. Flies were anciently associated with the mysteries of birth and death. Once upon a time, especially in the Middle East, flies were understood as souls of the dead searching for new incarnations. Souls were believed able to travel between lives in insect form. The Philistine deity Baal-Zebub, an aspect of the masculine fertility spirit Baal, is Lord of the Flies, the Shepherd of Souls. He would eventually become demonized and transformed into Beelzebub, a synonym for Satan.
Flies also represent the shaman’s journeying soul, whether literally or figuratively. Flies were envisioned as flying in and out of the entranced shaman’s open mouth. Should the fly be unable to return, the soul might be stuck in limbo, the shaman forever unable to awaken from the trance.
Flies may also be spirits in disguise and not particularly nice ones either. According to Arabic legend, King Solomon once transformed a mass of malevolent djinn into flies, imprisoning three million of them within a black glass bottle, which was then hidden inside a well near Babylon. Centuries later, local people searching for treasure came upon the bottle and broke it, releasing the flies/djinn, who were free but, unable to break Solomon’s transformation spell, were more spiteful and malevolent than ever.
Flies serve as witches’ familiars, especially in Scandinavia. Flies journey out to do the witch’s bidding (not always malevolent) and scout out information. Those imprisoned on accusations of witchcraft were often inadvertently betrayed by flies or other insects. Although they might emphatically deny the charges, even under torture, witch-hunters would claim that the presence of persistent, hovering flies was proof that the person had a familiar and was thus a witch. Of course, considering the standards of sanitation and cleanliness in a medieval prison, plus the presence of blood and pus from untreated, infected wounds incurred during torture, how could there not be flies?
Sometimes accused witches died before they could be executed, acquitted or otherwise released, whether because of suicide, miscalculated torture or deliberate murder. Because witch trials were legal proceedings, none of those scenarios was officially acceptable. The truth of the situation was often hushed up by blaming it on the flies; allegedly Beelzebub had sent emissaries in the form of flies to help the witches “escape” judgment.
Flies are often perceived negatively within traditional witchcraft.
Saami shamans allegedly kept flies in magic boxes to be sent out as desired to cause injury, or at least so claimed their non-Saami neighbors.
Not all flies are bewitched flies but the ones that are may be fatal: throughout Tanzania, special flies allegedly attack and kill victims at night as directed by the sorcerers who control them.
According to Pueblo Indian folklore, witches control flies and other insects, directing them to nefarious, destructive purposes.
Foxes
Foxes are intensely identified with witchcraft in East Asia, and most profoundly in Japan where they are the witchcraft animal supreme. Foxowning is a specific form of witchcraft, unique to Japan.
The fox’s role in witchcraft may derive from its ancient importance in Japanese spirituality. Inari is the ancient but still immensely popular Shinto spirit of rice, food, and nourishment. Inari brings prosperity, fertility, and abundance and has shrines in every Japanese farming village. The fox is Inari’s sacred animal, messenger and, sometimes, alter ego. Stone or wooden foxes are always found in front of Inari’s shrines. The fox and Inari merge to form one being: the question of which came first, the fox or the human shape, is irrelevant. They are parallel forms of the sacred being.
You’ll notice I haven’t used either “he” or “she” to refer to Inari; that’s because Inari’s gender(s) remains subject of debate. Today Inari is most commonly depicted as a bearded man carrying bundles of rice, however Inari also manifests as a beautiful woman or as a female fox. Inari’s female manifestation is believed to be older, predating the introduction of Buddhism into Japan. There is much debate in spiritual and academic communities as to whether Inari has always possessed both male and female manifestations or whether the original, primal spirit was female but over time, for socio-political and religious reasons, the male form became preferable and more common.
Inari in her feminine aspect is also intensely involved with sex, fertility, reproduction, and the magical arts, not only agricultural abundance. Similar but exclusively female fox spirits possessing strong ties to magic and witchcraft exist in China, India, and Tibet.
Once upon a time, Japanese fox spirits were protectors, teachers, and sponsors of witchcraft. Even now some fox spirits are saintly and helpful. (And the foxes that serve as Inari’s messengers are miracle workers, understood as sacred and godly.) However, as centuries passed, attitudes towards witchcraft became more ambivalent, and fox spirits became feared. Why?
Fox spirits are held responsible for illness and misfortune. They possess victims, similar to possession by demons, dybbuks or zar spirits. (This isn’t ritual possession or channeling; it’s involuntary and unpleasant—see MAGICAL ARTS: Ritual Possession.) Sometimes full possession (spiritual takeover) results; sometimes only individual symptoms of possession. Symptoms of fox possession include hearing voices, insatiable and indiscriminate appetite, nocturnal feelings of suffocation plus increasing facial resemblance to a fox: The person begins to develop a visible “snout.”
Eventually the fox may push the true individual out, taking over body, soul, and personality, either full-time or just intermittently. The fox spirit speaks through the person’s mouth, often indulging in obscenities, frequently sexual, which the person would normally never use. (See CREATIVE ARTS: Dance: Tarantella.)
Specific individuals and families are believed to control fox spirits. The solitary fox-owner is most frequently believed to be a corrupt and degenerate sorcerer or exorcist, the proverbial shaman-gone-bad. Although fox familiars are disproportionately female, those humans who put them to evil use are usually male.
Although most fox spirits are perceived as greedy or power-hungry, spiritual motivation may exist as well; what the fox spirit may really desire is a shrine and daily offerings. The only way for them to make their desire known is through a human mouth, similar to African zar spirits.
Solitary sorcerers dispatch foxes to carry out nefarious deeds. The old extortion racket may be at play: what seems like a perfectly respectable exorcist who specializes in ridding people of fox-spirit possession may actually be the source of that possession, the one who sent the fox. No wonder he can exorcise the spirit: the fox is his familiar who always does his bidding. Fox spirits may also be rented out to others for a fee, to perform their secret, dirty work as well. (Fox spirits tend to run in packs. As opposed to the concept of one familiar per person, the fox-owner may have a large number of fox spirits to work with. Seventy-five is a typical number, although there may be less. Foxes in the wild do not run in packs incidentally, being relatively solitary creatures.)
Fox spirits are fed daily; in return the familiar performs various magical services on the person’s behalf. It is a mutually beneficial relationship although neighbors may see the fox-owner as threatening and possessing unfair advantages.
Fox spirits run in families. Families who are hereditary owners of foxes typically transmit this hereditary power through the female line. For centuries tremendous fear and social stigma have been attached to families rumored to be fox-owners. Not only is it hereditary, fox-owning may be contagious too. One becomes contaminated (at least by the social stigma) by living in a house formerly occupied by a fox-owner or by possessing his or her property. Contamination may be avoided by avoiding the fox family: don’t visit them, don’t socialize with them, don’t engage in any financial transactions with them, don’t be friends with them (but don’t offend them either; you don’t want them coming after you), and don’t marry into their family—most especially don’t marry their women.
Japan has never had European-style witch-hunts; few witches have been killed. Instead their punishment is intense social ostracism. Occasionally ostracism has evolved into violence: houses burned down as retribution and/or entire families banished.
This isn’t ancient history: in 1952 a young couple committed suicide together because the woman came from a family with a reputation for fox-owning and the man’s family forbade their marriage. Because fox power is transmitted through the female line, they feared its impact (perhaps magically but certainly socially) on their family.
Just like real foxes are believed to surreptitiously raid chicken coops, fox spirits are believed to rob the neighbors. (Fox-owners are believed to gain wealth at the expense of others. To become suddenly, mysteriously wealthy is to leave oneself open to accusations of malevolent witchcraft—particularly if anyone else in the area is simultaneously suffering misfortune.)
In China, fox spirits retain their positive identity. Among their primary roles is the protection of archivists and librarians. Should a document be lost, missing or otherwise unable to be located, offerings are made to the fox spirit. After the offering is made, the archivist leaves the room for a little while to give the spirit space and opportunity to work its magic. Upon his return, the document, book or scroll should stick out or somehow draw attention to itself.
Despite the ostracism, you’d like a fox familiar. If you’re not from a family associated with them, where do you begin?
