User:Wxccxn lxps/Witch's mark

An image of woodcut of a witch feeding her familiars

Witch’s Mark

Witches were commonly believed to feed their familiars, the families being demonic pets of sorts that would commit their evil tasks for their owner. In this image we see the witch feeding her familiars by spoon, but the witch was also commonly believed to have extra teats on her body the familiars would suckle on.

Painting by Tompkins Matteson. An examination of a witch often included looking for extra teats on the body of the woman. If the teat appeared blackened, that was taken as a sign that a familiar had recently suckled on it.

The witch's teat is associated with the perceived perversion of maternal power by witches in early modern England. The witch's teat is associated with the feeding of witches' imps or familiars; the witch's familiar supposedly aided the witch in her magic in exchange for nourishment (blood) from sacrificial animals or from the witch's teat. It is also where the devil supposedly suckles when he comes at night to bed his faithful servants, sometimes impregnating them with his seed. Once the devilish half-breed has been conceived, the cambion may only feed upon this teat and no other. Folklore suggests that on the 7th day of the 7th week of consecutive feeding upon the teat, the cambion would grow to adulthood immediately and begin wreaking havoc with a range of demonic powers inherited from its supernatural father. However, should the ritual be disrupted during the 49-day period, the process has to restart all over again.

A medical examination done on the Lancaster witches, the transcript translates that something they were looking foron the Lancaster Witch’s was “ a teat or mark”. Taken from The National Archives under the Open Government Liscense