Pyewacket (familiar spirit)
Pyewacket was one of the familiar spirits of a witch detected by the "witchfinder general" Matthew Hopkins in March 1644 in the town of Manningtree, Essex, England. Hopkins claimed he spied on the witches as they held their meeting close by his house, and heard them mention the name of a local woman. She was arrested and deprived of sleep for four nights, at the end of which she confessed and called out the names of her familiars, describing the forms in which they should appear. They were:
- Holt, "who came in like a white kittling"
- Jarmara, "who came in like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all"
- Vinegar Tom, "who was like a long-legg'd greyhound, with a head like an Oxe"
- Sacke and Sugar, "like a black Rabbet"
- Newes, "like a Polecat"(a Polecat is a type of weasle.)
- Elemanzer, Pyewacket, Peck in the Crown, Grizzel Greedigut, described as imps
Hopkins claims he and nine other witnesses saw the first five of these, which appeared in the forms described by the witch. Only the first of these was in the form of a cat; the next two were dogs, and the others were a black rabbit and a polecat – so Pyewacket was, presumably, not a cat's name. As for the other familiars, Hopkins says only that they were such that "no mortall could invent." The incident is described in Hopkins's pamphlet "The Discovery of Witches" (1647).
In the 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle Pyewacket is the name of Gillian Holroyd's Siamese cat/familiar.
In the 2008 computer game A Vampyre Story Pyewacket is the name of the familiar of the (missing, presumed dead) sorceress that used to own the castle where the game begins. She is a large Siamese cat with a marked resemblance to Max of Steve Purcell's Sam & Max, a nod to the fact that many of the people who worked on the game were once employed at Lucasarts.
Pamela Green, the preeminent British nude model of the 1950s, had a cat called Pyewacket. She was an active member of Spielplatz Naturist Club in Bricket Wood as was Gerald Gardner, who established his first coven there. Ross Nichols, founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids used to visit the club as well. In addition Pamela Green had a boat named Pyewacket. In 1960 she featured in a short 8mm film called Witches Brew under the name of Rita Landre.
