How does one obtain a fox familiar? A late seventeenth-century work contains an account of the Izuna Rite, the magical ritual by which people gain power over fox familiars:
1 Find a pregnant fox.
2 Feed her, care for her, form an alliance with her during her pregnancy but especially afterwards when she’s needy and vulnerable.
3 YOU CANNOT TAKE A CUB, NO MATTER WHAT. This isn’t “fluffybunny” magic; I’m not making this up. This is what the seventeenth-century text instructs. If you are meant to have a fox familiar, when the cubs are sufficiently grown, the mother will bring you one and tell you to name it.
4 Name the fox but keep the name secret. Henceforth, if you call the name, the fox will come to you in invisible form. No one else will be able to see the fox spirit, only you. Nothing is ever entirely hidden, however, so be prepared for others to attribute supernatural powers to you.
Frogs and Toads
Frogs and their land counterparts, toads, are probably the most ancient and universal fertility symbols. The toad represented the uterus for the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Scandinavians. It is a fertility symbol throughout the Semitic world. Some theorize that this association was made because of the appearance of frogs prior to the flooding of rivers, an important herald of fruitfulness in desert lands.
Frogs seemed to call the rain or maybe to announce it. Frogs herald the start of the rainy season in Puerto Rico, too. Here on the other side of the world, years before Columbus, they became the ancient Taino emblem of fertility. Frogs represented fertility to the Aztecs and Mayans and to various indigenous cultures of North and South America. The Aymara of Bolivia and Peru traditionally placed small frog images on hill tops to magically call down rain when it was needed.
Frogs are related to human reproductive issues throughout East Asia. In China, frogs exemplify maximum yin, the ultimate feminine force. There’s no man in the moon, according to Chinese folklore; only a woman, a rabbit, and a frog—each one symbolic of intense yin forces as is the moon herself.
Frogs and toads are amphibians: they begin their lives as water creatures (tadpoles) but eventually shape-shift into land dwellers. According to estimates there are at least 4,360 species of frogs (including toads) worldwide. Frogs are found on every continent except Antarctica.
Maybe people perceived the link between frogs and fertility because, although they need to await proper conditions, when the frog finally does give birth, the tadpoles are so numerous. The tadpole is the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the number 100,000. Frogs appeared in great numbers during the annual Nile floods; they were harbingers of abundance and prosperity.
Maybe the shape of the tadpole and its watery environment were reminiscent of the human embryo. Modern people see a resemblance between the form of a tadpole and the shape of a sperm. Rationales are fascinating but ultimately tell us more about people than about frogs. What is significant is that very early in the development of human cultures and thought, the frog and the toad became symbols of birth and the entire regenerative process.
Eventually, the frog became a Halloween animal—a representation of the witch. This is for a reason: in Europe, frogs represented midwives. In the way that a barber’s pole advises you that haircuts are available, the frog was the midwife’s advertisement: “I can help you have a safe and easy birth.” When midwives became denigrated as witches, the frog was condemned as her familiar, her telltale sign.
Frogs represented the force that initiates life to the Egyptians, symbolic of the sacred powers of fertility, regeneration, and rebirth. In one Egyptian creation story, the world is formed from primordial chaos by the collective efforts of four frogs and four snakes. Heket may be the most ancient of Egypt’s many deities. Controller of human fecundity, the consort of the spirit of the Nile, she was revered as the “Giver of Life, Goddess of Primordial Waters” and as “the great magician.” Her hieroglyphic symbol was the frog. Heket could manifest purely in frog shape as well as a woman with a frog’s head. (Whether Egyptian Heket is or isn’t identical to Anatolian Hecate remains subject to fierce debate.)
Not all frogs are female: ancient Celts called frogs “Lords of the Earth,” identifying them with healing waters and sacred wells. Vestiges of these royal frogs linger in European fairy tales, like “The Frog Prince,” where enchanted frogs lurk in magical wells awaiting transformation into fabulous princes by true love’s kiss. Because toad venom may be hallucinogenic, frogs and toads are also associated with shamanism and divination.
Although most ancient associations with frogs and toads were positive, it wasn’t always the case: Zoroaster declared that all toads should be exterminated because of their venomous, malevolent nature. This exception to the rule eventually became the general perception in post-Christian Europe. Toads and frogs were perceived variously as slimy or warty, disguised demons or witches’ familiars.
Toads’ associations with magic, fertility, and women’s wisdom never disappeared but they were certainly reinterpreted. From Northern Italy upwards through Germany, Poland, and the Ukraine, toads are named by words that also indicate “fairies,” “witches,” and “sorcerers.” In parts of Italy, for instance, frogs are called “fada” or fairy. “Rospo,” the Italian word for toad, may derive from the Latin “haruspex,” the word used for Etruscan diviners.
By the Middle Ages frogs and toads were considered among witches’ most prevalent familiars. According to Reginald Scot, author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft published in 1584, toads were considered second in popularity only to the cat as a witch’s familiar.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when the witches say “Paddock calls” they refer to a familiar toad, “paddock” being a diminutive of the Anglo-Saxon word for toad “pad.”
According to testimony given during Basque witch trials (on the French side of the Pyrenees) toads were favored familiars. Great companies of witches allegedly traveled to cemeteries for the purpose of “baptizing” their toads, which were dressed to celebrate in black and red velvet with bells at their neck and feet. One young woman claimed to have seen a noble lady dancing at the Sabbat with four toads: one belled and costumed in velvet riding on her right shoulder, three more naked toads riding on her left shoulder and wrists.
Frogs and toads were perceived as diabolical, disgusting and grotesque. A Swiss woodcut from approximately 1500 depicts a dead witch lying on a table following her dissection. A large toad is shown where her heart should be: this was intended to demonstrate her depraved, inhuman, demonic nature.
Old memories die hard, however; even in post-Christian, post-witchcraze Europe, there was resistance towards abandoning this most potent and ancient of fertility symbols. According to Central European tradition frogs carried dead children’s souls, thus it was unlucky to kill them. A once popular Central European tradition involves offering frog-shaped ex-votos at the Virgin Mary’s shrines as part of a petition for fertility and women’s gynecological health.
Ancient people considered fierce, dangerous mothers desirable. A passive mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t defend her children only left them vulnerable. Thus it’s no surprise that many beautiful goddesses of fecundity also double as war goddesses (Aphrodite, Ishtar, Oshun). Frogs (and especially toads) may be harbingers of abundance, but they’re also potentially dangerous, venomous creatures.
When attacked or injured a toad secretes a thick white poison through its skin. This sometimes hallucinogenic, often lethal substance is now called bufotenine. Once upon a time, it was known as “toad’s milk” and was incredibly feared. Allegedly an ingredient in many witches’ flying ointments, it is typically the key ingredient in Amazonian arrow poison. It was believed that witches dispatched toads to poison their enemies. During Scotland’s North Berwick witch trials, Agnes Sampson confessed (under duress) to attempting to assassinate King James VI with poisonous toad juice. Toad venom may be among the ingredients of the formula that transforms people into zombis.
Goats
General wisdom states that goats were the first animals to be successfully domesticated. Goats are involved in a lot of firsts:
Goats are credited with leading people to coffee, once a sacred beverage. (For many, it still is.) An Ethiopian shepherd noticed that his goats were particularly perky; he watched as they chewed coffee berries and tried some himself, thus initiating the cult of caffeine.
Goats brought various fragrant resins to people, most especially rock roses, among Aphrodite’s holy flowers. The aromatic essence was discovered clinging to goats’ beards.
Some of the most ancient existing evidence of magical/spiritual ritual involves the unearthed funeral rites of a Neanderthal child discovered in Teshik-Tash, modern Uzbekistan. The child’s partial skeleton was encircled by ibex horns, a type of wild goat, arranged vertically in pairs, the pointed ends stuck into the ground, reminiscent of later European funerary spells that involve driving spindles into the ground, usually intended to quiet the restless dead.
Goats are responsible for the discovery of the Oracle of Delphi. Before there was ever a shrine, Delphi was a playground for goats, which thrived on the rocky terrain. Humans followed them up the slopes and domesticated them c. 1400 BCE. As legend tells it, a massive earthquake created a chasm or fissure at Delphi through which some sort of vapor emanated. (Modern science has been unable to detect or explain these vapors.) Goats exposed to the vapors were observed to act strangely, suffering spasms and bleating in odd voices. Their keepers began to have similar experiences except that their odd voices were discovered to be prophetic. Delphi eventually became an organized oracular shrine, originally dedicated to Gaia, the Earth and then to Apollo. Goats remained the ritual sacrifice at Delphi.
Goats are associated with love, knowledge, fertility, prophesy, expiation, regeneration, and rebirth. They are intensely associated with sex, sexual energy, and the procreative urge and power. Goats serve as Aphrodite’s mount and as companions of various Middle Eastern fertility spirits, including Inanna-Ishtar and Lady Asherah. Perceptions change: once upon a time, comparing a man to a goat implied admiration. Today’s “old goat” is a pathetic, foolish lecher, kind of like those dumb-ass donkeys.
According to a Germanic magic spell, goat tallow rubbed onto the penis serves as a babe magnet, irresistibly attracting women.
Goats were profoundly involved with a multitude of ancient spiritual traditions including Celtic, Greek, Jewish, Norse, Roman, and Sumerian. Goats are sacred to Aphrodite, Azazel, Dionysus, Freya, Hera, Hermes, Pan, Thor, Zeus: sexy deities, one and all.
Goats were respected, sacred, and beloved in ancient religion. Goats were people’s teachers, companions and in many places, primary food animal, supplying meat, milk, dairy products, and material for clothing and tents.
Goats were not generally considered to be witches’ familiars, nor do witches transform into goats. Goats do frequently serve as witches’ mounts however, and many medieval woodblock prints depicting witchcraft show witches riding on goats’ backs, just like Aphrodite, although this may have been intended to euphemistically suggest that witches copulate with the devil. No animal is more associated with the Christian devil than the goat. Artistic renditions of the sabbat from the Middle Ages to Goya’s masterpieces depict Satan presiding over the witches’ sabbat in the form of a tall man-sized upright goat. Satan is also depicted as a composite creature, frequently with bat’s wings and a snake’s forked tongue, but with goat’s eyes, horns and hooves.
More in-depth discussion of goats’ ancient spiritual roles and the part they were given to play during the Witchcraze are found in HORNED ONE.
Hyenas
The stereotypical African witch doesn’t have a pointy hat or broomstick but she’s still a night rider journeying to secret assignations with other witches. These female witches ride naked atop galloping hyenas, with one foot dragging on the ground, the other on the hyena. (Allegedly this enables the hyena to attain extraordinary speed.) The witch carries a flaming torch, fueled with hyena butter, keeping an extra supply in a gourd slung over her shoulder so there’s no danger of running out.
It’s the hyenas that reveal her identity. Hyenas are believed to be the telltale sign that causes someone, usually but not exclusively women, to be branded a witch in Africa. Any evidence, regardless how flimsy or tangential, linking someone with hyenas may be considered proof of sorcery in African witchcraft trials.
Witches ride hyenas. Witches keep hyena familiars. Witches are hyenas. Witches shape-shift into hyenas. Zambian sorcerers enter trances and send their souls into the bodies of real hyenas. In other areas, there’s no such thing as “real” hyenas: all are magical creatures, witches in disguise or witches’ familiars. There’s no such thing as a hyena that is not somehow affiliated with witchcraft.
Hyenas who are witches take spiritual possession of people, creating a kind of soul-hyena: the victimized person doesn’t physically transform, but inside, where a human soul should be, lurks this hyena. If your best friend doesn’t act like herself, maybe it’s because she isn’t herself: a hyena has supplanted her soul and taken over her body.
People who are witches transform hyenas into human likenesses. They can selectively choose the likeness, too. If your best friend begins to act strangely, maybe it really wasn’t him at all but a hyena in disguise. In other words, there are two of them walking around: the real one and the disguised hyena—something like a Swan Lake scenario but with hyenas instead of swans. Witches are also believed able to create hyenas: their bodies are molded from porridge and brought to life via rituals and herbs.
Witches are believed able to cast sleeping spells on hyenas, transforming them into their own likeness, putting them to bed beside their own husbands so that the witches can secretly slip out with no fear that the husband will ever wake up and discover their disappearance. (During European witch trials, witches allegedly used brooms, branches, and sticks in identical manner for the same purpose. Because this was generally believed, husbands testifying that their wives couldn’t possibly have attended sabbats as they had been home in bed together were thus unable to provide alibis for their wives.)
According to Bantu tradition, real hyenas are perfectly capable of transforming into human form without any help from a witch. The transformation may, however, only be accomplished during the day. Some hyenas shape-shift in order to visit, harass or terrorize humans, but some do it just for the joy of shape-shifting. Whole communities of shape-shifting hyenas are said to exist; although to an outsider they may look exactly like ordinary people. Don’t try to stay in their village, though, no matter how friendly the locals seem; they may look like people but they still eat like hyenas. In order to shape-shift like this, hyenas must obtain a human soul. How this is done varies but hyenas that eat human corpses, as hyenas are known to do, may have the inside track.
Throughout Africa, hyenas allegedly live and bear their young in the houses of witches who milk them daily.
In some areas, although not many, hyenas gain some level of protection from their associations with witchcraft: it’s believed dangerous to kill a hyena because her witch will magically retaliate.
In parts of East Africa, every witch is believed to own at least one hyena, which is branded with her special witch-mark, something like a bewitched cattle brand, invisible to regular eyes although clearly visible to other witches. Witches allegedly refer to their hyenas as “night cattle.” People swear they’ve seen hyenas sporting earrings, either indicating that they’re transformed people or that a person pierced that ear, as even the most magical hyena still lacks the skills for employment in a piercing parlor. (None of these tales actually derive from witches themselves; all are second-hand at best.)
The art of hyena riding is apparently very challenging. Novice witches must be trained at regular bush meetings where mounted witches gather. These rendezvous are reminiscent of European sabbats with one crucial exception. Yes, witches gather for orgies, cannibalism and all sorts of evil works, but there’s no devil in attendance. Like female hyenas, which are the dominant gender of their species, no need for a male director of ceremonies exists.
Observing the powerful identification of hyenas with witches in Africa that exists even today makes one think that this is how it must have been with black cats and witches during the European Burning Times. Any association between a cat and a woman was believed to betray witchcraft: witches rode cats, kept cats, transformed into cats. Even lone cats, sans women, were believed to be witches in disguise. There is one crucial difference though: even at the height of the Witchcraze, cats were understood to be beautiful, sensuous, sometimes useful creatures. They might be evil but seductively so. An element of longing exists: a desire to destroy what one can’t possess or control.
In Africa, hyenas are associated with garbage, feces, corpses, death, cemeteries, decay, and rotten odors. (And there are places where hyenas do live on human garbage and refuse or lurk in cemeteries, although this tends to be in urbanized areas where few other alternatives remain for them.) They are the largest creatures to exist mainly from scavenging. They are ungainly, awkward creatures, shaggy, smelly, and ragged-looking. They get into garbage; they unearth graves. They are not afraid of people, stealthily entering settlements at night in search of food, their identities exposed by glowing eyes and their characteristic, eerie laughter.
