Pyewacket was one of the supposed familiar spirits of an alleged witchaccused by the 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
Hopkins claims he and nine other witnesses saw the first five of these, which appeared in the forms described by the witch. Only the first of these was in the form of a cat; the next two were dogs, and the others were a black rabbit and a polecat – so Pyewacket was, presumably, not a cat's name. As for the other familiars, Hopkins says only that they were such that "no mortall could invent." The incident is described in Hopkins's pamphlet "The Discovery of Witches".
In film and fiction
In the Hollywood filmBell, Book and Candle Pyewacket is the name of the brown sealpoint Siamese cat/familiar of a witch, Gillian Holroyd, played by Kim Novak. The film was adapted from a 1958 Broadway play that continues to be produced in community theatres, with Pyewacket played by Kim Novak's real-life cat. The name of Novak's cat, Pywacket, was written into the script. In the 1961 children's novel Just Like Jennings, by Anthony Buckeridge, Pyewacket is a cat left in the charge of Mr Wilkins by his sister Margaret. In the 1967 children's novel Pyewacket the title character and protagonist is an alley cat. In the 1990 William Friedkin movie The Guardian, Holt, Jamara and Pyewacket are the names of the toys the nanny brings to the baby. In the 2008 computer gameA Vampyre Story, Pyewacket is the name of the familiar of the sorceress who used to own the castle where the game begins. She is also a Siamese cat. Pyewacket is a 2017 horror film.
