In the Shape of Dogs
Dogs have lived alongside humans as guardians, helpers, and companions since before the dawn of recorded history, making dogs the perfect familiars for suspected witches. In this episode, we explore animals as witches’ familiars, hear the story of Elizabeth Sawyer and her dog-familiar, Tom, and meet one of the most famous dogs suspected of witchcraft: a white poodle named Boy. Can a dog be a witch's best friend?
Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.
Title page of The Witch of Edmonton
Portrait of Boy
Music
Purple Planet - Finding Mithral
Purple Planet - Fallen Angels
Purple Planet - Introspection
Purple Planet - Running with the Horses
Purple Planet - Sense of Loss
Purple Planet - Shadowlands
Sources
Primary
Anon. A Dialogue, or Rather a Parley, between Prince Rupert's Dog whose name is Puddle and Tobies’ Dog, whose name is Pepper. 1643.
Anon. The Parliaments Unspotted-Bitch: In Answer to Prince Roberts Dog Called Boy, and His Malignant She-Monkey. 1643.
Anon. Signes and Wonders from Heaven. 1645.
B, T. Observations upon Prince Rupert's White Dogge, Called Boye: Carefully Taken by T.B. for that Purpose Imployed by some of Quality in the Citty of London. London: 1642.
Dekker, Thomas, John Ford, and William Rowley. The Witch of Edmonton. 1621. Edited by Shelby Richardson. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2021.
Goodcole, Henry. The Wonderfull Discouerie of Elizabeth Savvyer a Witch. London: 1621.
Secondary
Callow, John. “These Familiar Things? Witchcraft, War Crimes and Prince Rupert ‘the Devil’.” The Seventeenth Century 29, no. 2 (2014): 197-210.
Carr, Victoria. “Witches and the Dead: The Case for the English Ghost Familiar.” Folklore (London) 130, no. 3 (2019): 282-299.
Coates, Richard. “Pyewacket: A Familiar Spirit of the Witchfinder General.” Names 61, no. 4 (2013): 212-18.
Ezra, Elizabeth. “Becoming Familiar: Witches and Companion Animals in Harry Potter and His Dark Materials.” Children’s Literature 47, no. 1 (2019): 175-196.
Micklewright, F. H. Amphlett. “A Note on the Witch-Familiar in Seventeenth Century England.” Folklore 58, no. 2 (1947): 285-87.
Millar, Charlotte Rose. “The Witch’s Familiar in Sixteenth-Century England.” Melbourne Historical Journal no. 38 (2010): 113.
Murray, M. A. “Divination by Witches’ Familiars.” Man 18, (1918): 50.
Murray, M. A. “A Male Witch and His Familiar.” Folklore 63, no. 4 (1952): 227.
Murray, M. A. “Witches’ Familiars in England.” Man 18, (1918): 61.
Niehaus, Isak. “Witches of the Transvaal Lowveld and Their Familiars: Conceptions of Duality, Power and Desire (Sorciers de La Région Du Lowveld Au Transvaal).” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 35, no. 138/139 (1995): 513-40.
Parish, Helen. “‘Paltrie Vermin, Cats, Mise, Toads, and Weasils’: Witches, Familiars, and Human-Animal Interactions in the English Witch Trials.” Religions 10, no. 2 (2019): 134.
Pearson, Meg F. “A Dog, a Witch, a Play: ‘The Witch of Edmonton’.” Early Theatre 11, no. 2 (2008): 89-111.
Pentangelo, Joseph. “Grizzel Greedigut: A Name ‘no Mortall could Invent’.” Names 67, no. 2 (2019): 78.
Purkiss, D. “Desire and its Deformities: Fantasies of Witchcraft in the English Civil-War.” The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 27, no. 1 (1997): 103-132.
Rojas, Rochelle. “The Witches’ Accomplice: Toads in Early Modern Navarre.” Sixteenth-Century Journal 51, no. 3 (2020): 719-40.
Stoyle, Mark. The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda during the English Civil War. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2011.
Warburton, Greg. “Gender, Supernatural Power, Agency and the Metamorphoses of the Familiar in Early Modern Pamphlet Accounts of English Witchcraft.” Parergon 20, no. 2 (2003): 95-118.
Wilby, Emma. “The Witch’s Familiar and the Fairy in Early Modern England and Scotland.” Folklore (London) 111, no. 2 (2000): 283-305.
