Animals were frequently the agents of malefic witchcraft. A witch was believed to have animal familiars, or imps, who nourished themselves on her body, performed evil acts at her command, and were themselves supernatural beings. Familiars assumed various forms to disguise their activities. Witnesses sometimes testified to seeing familiars so grotesque in shape as to suggest their demonic origins. More often, witnesses would talk about recognizable creatures: “a white Thing like a Cat,” “sumething Like a Littell Doge,” or “some small Creatures, like Mice or Ratts.” Since it was believed that familiars needed to return to their mistresses for feedings at least once a day, one of the ways of proving a woman a witch (called a “watching”) was to isolate and secretly observe her until the creature came to her.
A witch could also turn herself into an animal in order to carry out her evil deeds without being recognized. Or she could recruit real animals to do her bidding, or turn other people into animals if it suited her purposes. New Englanders sometimes found that their horses “head bin much abused by riding” the previous night, or complained that they themselves had been “hag-ridden” during their sleep.
Carol F. Karlsen Excerpt from The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, New England's Witchcraft Beliefs, 1998
