![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Scattered throughout encounter-narratives from Southern England, where descriptions of sabbath and fairyland experiences are seldom found, we still find references to familiars attempting to lure magical practitioners to 'go with them’, although the destination- is not specified. Bessie Dunlop claimed that on one occasion Tom Reid 'tuke hir be the aproun, and wald haif had hir gangand [go} with him to Elfame’, and that on another, she met a group of 'gude wychtis that wynnit in the Court of Elfame quha come thair to desyre hir to go with thame’. Cunning-Folk and Familiar Spirits examines the folkloric roots of familiar lore from historical, anthropological and comparative religious perspectives. Nairnshire witch Isobel Gowdie ( 1662 ), for example, first met the Devil as she was ‘goeing betwix the townes of Drumdewin and the Headis’ where she ‘promeisit to me it him, in the night time, in the Kirk of Aulderne quhilk I did’. ![]() “A few magical practitioners claimed that they first met their familiars in fairyland, or at the sabbath however, a greater number claimed that their journey to these places had been initiated by the familiar’s invitation. Emma Wilby is an Honorary Fellow in History at the University of Exeter. ![]()
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