Chickens and Witchcraft

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

Chickens as Familiars

A chicken named Nan was considered a familiar in the 17^th-century Bury St. Edmonds trials of Suffolk, England. Three other chickens were also cited as imps in the same area (Guiley 1989 44).

Alice Samuel, the witch of Throckmorton, confessed to having a dun chicken as a familiar. At one time, this chicken plagued the children of Throckmorton, but ceased because:

the said dun chicken with the rest are now come into her, and are now in the bottom of her belly, and make her so full she is like to burst, and this morning they caused her to be so full she could scant lace her coat, and that on the way as she came, they weighed so heavy that the horse she rode on did fall down and was not able to carry her (Purkiss 137).

Some witches were believed to have had sex with chickens. At the end of the seventeenth century, Johannes Henricus Pott tells of "a woman who, having probably coupled with a demon in the guise of a rooster, laid eggs every day" (Couliano 149).

Chickens as Wards Against Witches

During the Middle Ages, the cock was an important Christian symbol of resurrection and vigilance. A rooster represented God, goodness, and lightness. Cocks' places were earned at the top of buildings, domes, and church steeples. They crowed at the birth and death of Christ, and they herald the dawn, "which brings light to the sins of the night and rouses men to the worship of God" (Guiley 1989 68).

Witches Sabbats were dispersed, and enchantments were dissolved, by the crow of a rooster. The rites of Satan ended because the Holy Office of the Church had begun. the 4^th-century Christian Latin poet Prudentius sang, "They say that the night-wandering demons, who rejoice in dunnest shades, at the crowing of the cock tremble and scatter in sore affright." In the time of Saint Benedict, Lauds and Matins were recited at dawn and became known as Gallicinium, or Cock-crow.

According to Nicholas Remy, a 16^th-century witch prosecutor and demonologist, cocks were despised by all sorcerers and witches. However, roosters did not keep witches away. Cocks were a frequent sacrifice victim by witches because killing one was tantamount to spitting in the eye of God (Summers 117).

According to English folklore, a witch's power can be destroyed by sticking pins in the heart of a stolen hen (Guiley 1989 269).

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Chickens and Witchcraft copyright 1997-1998 to Shantell Powell.