Pyewacket (familiar spirit)

Pyewacket was said to be one of the familiar spirits of a convicted 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

"Immediately after this Witch confessed severall other Witches, from whom she had her Imps, and named to divers women where their marks were, the number of their Marks, and Imps, and Imps names, as Elemanzer, Pyewacket, Peckin the Crown, Grizzel, Greedigut, &c. which no mortall could invent;"^[1]