I rarely pass up the opportunity to scan any book’s index for mention of the hedgehog. While browsing books at a local used shop this weekend, I happened upon a copy of Cassell’s Dictionary of Witchcraft (Cassell Reference) and was glad I flipped through to the ‘H’ entries.
The entry states that the hedgehog is a “traditional disguise of witches”, one which was used for robbing cows milk, gaining entry to the homes and eavesdropping and that the “association between hedgehog and witchcraft was so strong that in the past many people killed hedgehogs on sight”.
Most interesting to me was reference to familiars taking the form of the hedgehog. In English witchcraft, familiars are spirits who serve their owner, typically taking on an animal form. Pickering only gives information about one of the records, that being of Christian Green, one of the “Somerset Witches”. Green’s account is found in Margaret Murray’s The Witch-Cult In Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology in the chapter Familiars and Transformations.
Christian Green saith, The Devil doth usually suck her left Brest about five of the Clock in the Morning in the likeness of an Hedghog, bending, and did so on Wednesday Morning last. She saith that it is painful to her, and that she is usually in a trance when she is suckt.’
Murray’s book is also available online at sacred-texts.com.