Pyewacket (familiar spirit)

Pyewacket was one of the supposed familiar spirits of an alleged witch accused by the claimed 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"
• 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).