Abstract
This paper is a preliminary study into the nature of popular belief in the witch's familiar in early modern England and Scotland. It illustrates some of the similarities to be found between beliefs in the witch's familiar and contemporary fairy beliefs and argues that the extent of these similarities suggests that in the period there must have been considerable confusion between the two kinds of spirit, particularly on a popular level. The paper then goes on to argue that fairy beliefs provided a matrix of thought which underpinned the whole construct of the witch's familiar in the popular mind, a construct which interacted with elite demonological theory in a coherent and dynamic way.
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