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Familiars : Spirits
attendant upon a magician, sorcerer, or ? witch. The idea
probably arose out of that of fetishism • (q.v.)
especially as many familiars were supposed to reside in
rings, lockets, or other trinkets worn by the wizard 'or
sorcerer. From Delrio we learn that these spirits were
called by the Greeks •' Paredrii," as being ever
assiduously at hand; and by the Latins, beside ''
Familiares," •' Mar-tinelli," or •' Magistelli," for which
names he does not assign any reason. The black dog of
Cornelius Agrippa is among the best known familiars of
modern times. His story rests on the authority of Paulus
Jovius, (" Elogia " ci.) and it has been copied by Thevet,
among others, in his Hist, des Hommss plus Illttstres et
Scavans, XVIII. Jovius relates that Agrippa was always
accompanied by the devil in the shape of a black dog, and
that, perceiving the approach of death, he took a collar
ornamented with nails, disposed in magical inscriptions
from the neck of the animal, and dismissed him with these
memorable words, '' Abi perdita Bestia quae me totum
perdidisti." (Away, accursed beast, through whose agency I
must now sink into perdition.) Tne dog thus addressed, it
is said, ran hastily to the banks of the Saone, into which
he plunged headlong, and was never afterwards seen. Le
Loyer says:—" With regard to the demons whom they
imprisoned in rings and charms, the magicians of the
school of Salamanca and Toledo, and their master Picatrix,
together with those in Italy who made traffic of this kind
of ware, knew better than to say whether or not they had
appeared to those who had been in possession or bought
them. And truly I cannot speak without horror of those who
pretend to such vulgar familiarity with them, even to
speaking of the nature of each particular demon shut up in
a ring; whether he be a Mercurial, Jovial, Saturnine,
Martial, or Aphrodisiac spirit; in what form he is wont to
appear when required; how many times in the night he
awakes his possessor; whether benign or cruel in
disposition; whether he can be transferred to another ;
and if, once possessed, he can alter the natural
temperament, so as to render men of Saturnine complexion
Jovial, or the Jovials Saturnine, and so on. There is no
end of the stories which might be collected under this
head, to which if I gave faith, as some of the learned of
our time have done, it would be filling my paper to little
purpose. I will not speak therefore of the crystal ring
mentioned by Joalium of Cambray, in which a young child
could see all that they demanded of him, and which
eventually was broken by the possessor, as the occasion by
which the devil too much tormented him. Still less will I
stay my pen to tell of the sorcerer of Courtray, whose
ring had a demon enclosed in it, to whom it behoved him to
speak every five days. In fine, the briefest allusion must
suffice to what they relate of a gentleman of Poitou, who
had playfully taken from the bosom of a young lady a
certain charm in which a devil was shut up. " Having
thrown it into the fire," the story goes, " he was
incessantly tormented with visions of the devil till the
latter granted him another charm, similar to the one he
had destroyed, for the purpose of returning to the lady
and renewing her interest in him." Heywood writes, if not
much more fully on the subject than Le Loyer does, and
evidently attaches a far greater degree of credibility to
the narratives which he brings forward. " Grillandus is of
opinion, that everie Magition and Witch, after they have
done their homage to the devell, have a familiar spirit
given to attend them, whom they call ' Magistellus,' '
Magister,' ' Martinettus ' or ' Martinellus'" and these
are sometimes visible to men in the shape of a dog, a rat,
an aethiope, etc. So it is reported of one Magdalena
Crucia, that she had one of these paredrii to attend her
like a blackemore. Glycas tells us, that Simon Magus had a
great black dog tyed in a chaine, who, if any man came to
speak with him whom he had no desire to see was ready to
devoure him. His shadow likewise he caused still to go
before him ; making the people beleeve that it was the
soule of a dead man who still attended him.
" These kindes of familiar spirits are such as they
include or keepe in rings hallowed, in viols, boxes, and
caskets; cot that spirits, having no bodies, can be
imprisoned there against their wills, but that they seem
to be confined of their own free-will and voluntarie
action.
'' Johannes Leo writeth, that such are frequent in Africke,
shut in caves, and bear the figure of birds called Aves
Hario-latrices, by which the Magitions raise great summes
of money, by predicting by them of things future. For
being demanded of any difficulty, they bring an answer
written in a small scroll of paper, and deliver it to the
magition in their bills. Martinus Anthonius Delrius, of
the Society of Jesus, a man of profound learning and
judgment, writeth, that in Burdegell there was an advocate
who in a viol kept one of these Paradrii inclosed. Hee
dying, his heires knowing thereof, were neither willing to
keepe it, nor durst they breake it; and demanding
counsel!, they were persuaded
to go to the Jesuit's Colledge, and to be directed by
them. The fathers commanded it to be brought before them
and broken; but the executors humbly besought them that it
might not be done in their presence, being fearfull least
some great disaster might succeed thereof. At which they
smiling, flung it against the wall, at the breaking
thereof there was nothing seen or heard, save a small
noise, as if the two elements of water and fire had nearly
met together, and as soone parted.
" Philostratus tells us, that Apollonius Tyaneus was never
without such rings; and Alexander Neapolitanius affirmeth,
that he received them of Jarcha, the great prince of the
Gymnosophists, which he took of him as a rich present, for
by them he could be acquainted with any deep secret
whatsoever. Such a ring had. Johannes Jodocus Rosa, a
citizen of Cortacensia, who every fifth day had conference
with the spirit enclosed using it as a counsellor and
director in all his affairs and interprises whatsoever. By
it he was not onely acquainted with all newes as well
forrein as domesticke, but learned the cure and remedy for
all griefs and diseases ; insomuch that he had the
reputation of a learned and excellent physition. At
length, being accused of sortilege or enchantment, at
Arnham, in Guelderland, he was proscribed, and in the year
1548 the chancellor caused his ring, in the public market,
to be layd upon an anvil, and with an iron hammer beaten
to pieces.
" Mengius reporteth from the relation of a deare friend of
his (a man of approved fame and honestie) this historic.
In a certain town under the jurisdiction of the Venetians,
one of their prestigious artists (whom some call Python-ickes),
having one of these rings, in which he had two familiar
spirits exorcised and bound, came to a predicant or
preaching friar, a man of sincere life and conversation;
and confessed unto him that hee was possessed of such an
enchanted ring, with such spirits charmed, with whom he
had conference at his pleasure. But since he considered
with himselfe, that it was a thing dangerous to bis soule,
and abhominable both to God and man, he desired to be
cleanly acquit of it, and to that purpose he came to
receive of him some godly counsell. But by no persuasion
would the religious man be induced to have any speech at
all with these evil spirits (to which motion the other had
before earnestly solicited him), but admonished him to
cause the magicke ring to be broken, and that to be done
with all speed possible. At which words the familiars were
heard (as it were) to mourne and lament in the ring, and
to desire that no such violence might be offered unto
them; but rather than so, that it would please him to
accept the ring, and keepe it, promising to do him all
service and vassallage ; of which, if he pleased to
accept, they would in a short time make him to be the most
famous and admired predicant in all Italy. But he
perceiving the devils cunning, under this colour of
courtesie, made absolute refusall of their offer; and
withall conjured them to know the reason why they would so
willingly submit themselves to his patronage ? After many
evasive lies and deceptious answers, they plainly
confessed unto him, that they had of purpose persuaded the
magition to heare him preach; that by that sermon, his
conscience being pricked and galled, he might be weary of
the ring, and being refused of the one, be accepted of the
other; by which they hoped in short time so to have puft
him up with pride and heresie, to have percipitated his
soule into certaine and never ending destruction. At which
the churchman being zealously inraged, with a great hammer
broke the ring almost to dust, and in the name of God sent
them thence to their own habitation of darkness, or
whither it pleased the highest powers to dispose them.
" Of this kinde doubtlesse was the ring of Ggyes (of whom
Herodotus doth make mention), by vertue of which he had
power to walke invisible; who, by the murder of his
sovereign Candaules, married his queene, and so became
King of Lydia. Such, likewise, had the Phocensian tyrant,
who, as Clemens Stromaeus speaketh, by a sound which came
of itselfe, was warned of all times, seasonable and
unseasonable, in which to manage his affairs; who,
notwithstanding, could not be forewarned of his pretended
death, but his familiar left him in the end, suffering him
to be slain, by the conspirators. Such a ring, likewise,
had one Hieronimus, Chancellor of Mediolanum, which
afterwards proved to be his untimely ruine." (Hierarchie
of the" Blessed Angels, vii.; The Principals, p. 475,
etc.)
Sometimes the familiar annexed himself voluntarily to a
master, without any exercise of magic skill or invocation
on his part, nor could such a spirit be disposed of
without exorcism, as we learn from the following story
cited by Delrio (vi., c. ii., s. 3., q. 3.):—" A certain
man (pater familias—head of a family), lived at Trapani,
in Sicily, in whose house it is said, in the year 1585,
mysterious voices had been heard for a period of some
months. This familiar was a daemon, who, in various ways,
endeavoured to annoy man. He had cast huge stones, though
as yet he had broken no mortal head; and he had even
thrown the domestic vessels about, but without fracturing
any of them. When a young man in the house played and
sung, the demon, hearing all, accompanied the sound of the
lute with lascivious songs, and this distinctly. He
vaunted himself to be a daemon; and when the master of the
house, together with his wife, went away on business to a
certain town, the dsemon volunteered his company. When he
returned, however, soaked through with rain, the spirit
went forward in advance, crying aloud as he came, and
warning the servants to make up a good fire," etc. In
spite of these essential services, the paterfamilias
called in the aid of a priest and expelled the familiar,
though not without some difficulty.
A learned German physician has given an instance in which
the devil of his own accord enclosed himself in a ring as
a familiar, thereby proving how dangerous it is to trifle
with him.
Paracelsus was believed to carry about with him a familiar
in the hilt of his sword. Naude assures us, that he never
laid this weapon aside even when he went to bed, that he
often got up in the night and struck it violently against
the floor, and that frequently when overnight he was
without a penny, he would show a purseful of gold in the
morning. (Apologie pour les Grands Homines soup-connez de
Magie, xiv., p. 281.) After this, we are not a little
disconcerted with the ignoble explanation which he gives
of this reputed demon, namely, that although the
alchemists maintain that it was no other than the
philosopher's stone, he (Naude) thinks it more rational to
believe, if indeed there was anything at all in it, that
it was two or three doses of laudanum, which Paracelsus
never went without, and with which he effected many
strange cures.
The feats of Kelly, " Speculator " to Dr. Dee, may be read
in the life of the last-named writer. Of Dr. Dee himself
and the spirits Ash, II, Po, Va, and many others, who used
to appear to him, by Kelly's ministry, in a beryl, much
may be found in Merie Casaubon's Relation of what passed
for many years between Dr. John Dee and some spirits. This
narrative comprises the transactions of four-and-twenty
years, from 1583 to 1607. Familiars partook of that
jealousy which is always a characteristic of spiritual
beings, from the time of Psyche's Cupid downwards, in
their intercourse with mortals. This feeling is strongly
exemplified in a narrative given by Froissart, and
translated by Lord Berners, which relates:—" How a spyrite,
called Orthone, serued the lorde of Corasse a long
time, and brought euer tidynges from all parts of the
worlde."
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