Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Witchcraft, Shapeshifting And Familiars

cat familiarsHumans have always had a powerful desire to learn what the future holds and, if possible, control it. As early as prehistory, people developed any number of practices and associated beliefs to try to accomplish this. People have employed various types of divination, oracular consultations, witchcraft, and the use of witch familiars throughout time to attempt to discern and influence the future.

The custom of observing animal or bird behavior as omens or indications of things to come is ancient. This practice in the British Isles is at least as old as Druidic times. But observation itself is limited to gathering information. The next logical step is to attempt some sort of control. Here is where the notion of the familiar is born. If a falconer trains a bird to hunt and return to the glove, why couldn’t a witch command an animal to do his or her bidding?

witchcraft and familiars

Accused witches, like most people, lived with pets. Once a person was suspected of witchcraft, the accusers stigmatized this pet as a ‘familiar’ (also known sometimes as an ‘imp’) and believed it to be able to assist the witch in the practice of witchcraft. People suspected that many small animals, which could live in a household, were familiars. Witch trial transcripts in Britain as early as 1566 cite cats, dogs, rats, mice, toads, moles, rabbits, ferrets, and even insects as familiars.

Familiars - Cats and the Devil

Cats have been common household pets for hundreds of years. Accusers understandably often suspected them of being familiars. Although several other animals could be familiars, people most often associated cats with witches. Some people believed that witches were able to turn themselves into cats. Other people believed a witch had the power to command her cat to cast curses or to spy or inflict other mischief on her behalf. Still others believed the cat belonged to the devil, to whom the witch had pledged her soul, and that the devil could use it to cause evil. People also sometimes believed familiars to be minor demonic spirits that took the shape of cats or other animals and could assist the witch in evil doing.

In a famous witch trial headed by King James himself, Agnes Sampson was tortured and executed as a witch in Scotland in 1591. King James suspected that his fiancé, Anne of Denmark, had been unable to reach Scotland by boat due to storms caused by curses. After torture, Agnes Sampson confessed that she and other witches had prevented Anne’s boat from reaching Scotland by throwing bewitched cats into the North Sea. Such were beliefs at the time that no one found this explanation questionable, including the King.

Consider the following story, taken from Witchcraft in England by Christina Hole:

Rutterkin the Cat Familiar

Margaret Flower was employed as a charwoman at Belvoir Castle, where she resided in the servant’s quarters. The Earl of Rutland owned the castle. His heir was his son, Lord Rosse. In early 1618, the Earl terminated her employment with charges that she took things she had no right to and was lax in her duties. Margaret decided to take revenge for her dismissal because she had lost both her residence and income.

cat familiars

Margaret asked for help from her mother, Joan Flower, a reputed witch with a cat familiar called Rutterkin. Joan herself held the Earl of Rutland in low regard as a result of former dealings and was eager to help her daughter in this matter. She instructed Margaret to steal a glove from Lord Rosse and give it to her mother. Joan stroked Rutterkin with the glove, dipped it in boiling water, pricked it and buried it. Subsequently, Lord Rosse fell ill and eventually died.

Trial documents indicate that Joan may have alluded to revenge in conversation with someone. At any event, people discovered their actions, and both mother and daughter were arrested. After torture, Margaret Flower confessed. She was hanged in March 1619. Her mother refused to admit guilt. Instead, she asked for bread and butter, invoking an ancient “test of ordeal” involving a prayer to God that the bread ‘would not go through her’ if she were guilty. Fascinatingly, she choked on the bread and died on the way to jail.

The Witch’s Teat or Devil’s Mark

The story of Margaret Flower is typical of testimonies about familiars given at witch trials in the seventeenth century. The Devil could gift a familiar to a witch. A witch could inherit a familiar. Another witch might gift a familiar to her. People believed the witch would feed the familiar with his or her blood. Either the familiar sucked directly from some part of her body, or she mixed her blood into its food. Evidence of any sort of mark on a witch’s body, often called a ‘witch’s teat’ or a ‘Devil’s mark,’ proved that she fed her familiar with her blood. A ‘witch’s teat’ could be any sort of mole, birthmark, discoloration, skin tag, or other skin anomaly.

Over time, people connected black cats in particular with a witch’s familiar. In the Scottish Highlands people still tell stories of the cat sith (pronounced ‘cot she’), a large black cat (think the size of a dog) with a white patch on its chest. The cat sith has the special ability to slip between our world and the realm of the fairies and sometimes serves as a guardian of the fairy realm. Seventeenth-century Scots took fairies very seriously. People were keen to avoid fairies, since they could trap you underground in their realm or do you other harm. It was best to avoid the cat sith as well, since it might be aiding fairies in their mischief, or was perhaps a kind of fairy itself.

Fairy Darts

Among their other activities, Scots believed that fairies roamed the Scottish countryside in search of sustenance. These fairies used ‘fairy darts’ or ‘elf darts’ to hunt game for food. (Such darts were associated with prehistoric arrowheads found throughout Scotland.) The fairies often used humans as archers for shooting their darts, since humans were stronger than fairies. Fairies were also often in league with witches, who were delighted to become their archers.

One of the most famous of all Scottish witches, Isobel Gowdie, claimed to shoot ‘elf-darts’ in her 1662 trial testimony. Witches such as Isobel could make use of these darts to harm or kill their enemies, which Isobel testified that she had done. Humans who were shot with such a dart and did not immediately bless themselves would sicken and die. Also, witches who followed the fairies in their feasting and processions through the countryside could gain magical benefits. Isobel claimed to have feasted with the fairy king and queen under the local hills.

witchcraft

Whether a fairy, a fairy guardian, a shapeshifting witch, or some other supernatural being, the cat sith lurked in moors and lonely pathways. A wise traveler would avoid such paths, especially at night or in other times of poor visibility. Fairies, with the help of the cat sith , collected human souls. The Highlanders carefully guarded their dead before burial so that the cat sith could not steal their souls before they were able to get to Heaven. The living mourners played games outside the home where their dead were laid out in order to distract the cat sith from going inside. Firelight would attract the cat sith, so mourners avoided lighting fires at all cost.

Shapeshifting Witches

Another common belief was that a witch could transform or shapeshift into her familiar. There were whispers that the cat sith might be a witch who could transform into a cat nine different times before she became stuck in cat form. Might that be why we say a cat has nine lives?

Julian Goodare, in Scottish Witches and Witch Hunters, speaks of Isobel Elliot and Marion Veitch who, in 1678, flew in the shape of bees. Thomas Lindsay, in 1697, confessed that “if he pleased, he could fly in the likeness of a crow.” In Glasgow in 1699, William Scott accused Margaret Duncan, Janet Gentleman, and Marion Ure of appearing in his bedchamber as a sow, a cat and an ape, where they danced around his bedstead. In the same book, Lauren Martin tells of Christian Grintoun, who in 1629 left his house in the shape of a cat.

The belief in shapeshifting is ancient and was once widespread throughout the world. Early cave paintings depict shapeshifting. Similar to the oracular interpretation of animal behavior, belief in shapeshifting has persisted and has been passed down throughout cultures. People associate shapeshifting with shamanism and with magical powers. Though often denied by the learned, in the seventeenth century the majority of ordinary people considered the ability to shapeshift as irrefutable. The idea that witches possessed such powers of transformation seemed self-evident.

Today it seems absurd to our rational minds that these beliefs could have been widespread. Very few people alive now would believe throwing cats into the North Sea could cause storms. Perhaps a few more would believe that people could turn into animals in shamanistic rituals. At the same time, there are a small but significant number of people who feel uncomfortable around black cats, especially at Halloween. Perhaps in some tiny dark corner of our minds, a certain resonance with such suspicions still lingers.


Susan Finkleman is currently working on a historical novel about the Crook of Devon witch trials in 1662. For more stories, please check out her substack (here)

Friday, 10 October 2025

The Rudston Monolith & East Yorkshire’s Mysterious ‘Wold Newton Triangle’

Wikimedia Commons

Up in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where I once studied history at the University of Hull, in the parish churchyard of Rudston village, stands the towering Rudston Monolith, at over 25 feet (and weighing 40 tonnes), the tallest standing stone in the United Kingdom.

rudston monolith
Wikimedia Commons

​One other, smaller stone, also in All Saints churchyard, was once located near its larger sibling. The Norman church was constructed on an ancient pagan site, a common practice through the ages. The name of Rudston stems from the Old English "Rood-stane", equating to "cross-stone", meaning the monolith was probably already an object of some heathen veneration, adopted (as always) by Christianity.

The Rudston Monolith is associated with several local legends; one claims the stone was thrown by the Devil at the church, but missed due to divine intervention, others say it fell from the sky to flatten evildoers bent on desecrating the churchyard for satanic reasons.

Those who hold with belief in the ancient ley lines etched across England’s landscape, claim no fewer than five actually converge in Rudston.

Antiquarian Sir William Stukeley (1687–1765) found a large quantity of skulls during his dig at the Monolith, and understandably suggested it may have been a site for human sacrifice. An experiment conducted by William Strickland in the 18th century suggested the stone may even extend underground to a similar depth as above ground. This has yet to be confirmed.

Other prehistoric monuments in the area include four ‘cursi’ - huge Neolithic enclosure structures resembling Roman chariot-racing tracks which comprised parallel banks with external trenches. Three of these constructions converge on the site of the monolith itself. Some say they were used in rituals connected with ancestor worship, or were astronomical in nature. They may also have served as buffer zones between ceremonial and occupation landscapes.

The famed ‘disappearing’ Gypsey Race chalk stream bisects four of the cursus monuments and would have had to be crossed, were these routes to be followed to the Monolith. Local folklore says when the Gypsey Race is flowing in flood (The Woe Waters), ill fortune or great events are close at hand. The Race was in flood in the year before the Great Plague of 1665–66, at the restoration of Charles II (1660), when William of Orange landed in 1688, and before both World War One and World War Two, as well as the exceptionally cold winters of 1947 and 1962.

Recent studies posit the cursi were, in reality, used for ceremonial athletic or military competitions, in keeping with their resemblance to Roman circuses.

Not too far away in North Yorkshire stand The Devil’s Arrows (named due for a similar reason as Rudston) at Boroughbridge; three prehistoric standing stones, the tallest stone measuring 22.5 feet, second in height in the United Kingdom after the Rudston Monolith.

Wikimedia Commons

From The Urban Prehistorian, ”there is a healthy Children of the Stones vibe at the Devil’s Arrows.”

The Rudston Monolith is impressive, but is overshadowed by France’s Grand Menhir Brisé, also known as the Pierres-Pages Menhir, situated in Locmariaquer, Brittany, estimated to have been 20 meters (65 feet) tall originally. Although it subsequently broke into several pieces, the Menhir remains far taller than the Rudston - if it was still standing, not strewn into massive chunks on the ground.

Wikimedia Commons
When standing - Wikimedia Commons

The Wold Newton Triangle - home to Hobgoblins, Boggles, Boggarts, Hobs and Werewolves

The East Riding is also known for another strange occurrence, that of the Boggles, Ghosts and others who dwell in the mysterious area known as the Wold Newton Triangle, which runs from Scarborough to Driffield then stretching east to Flamborough.

The Wold’s many myths and legends also include green-hued faerie folk, headless ghosts, a greedy Queen, a black skeleton, a Parkin (gingerbread)-eating dragon, sea serpents, shape shifters, enchanted wells, and the giant monoliths, ley lines and the disappearing river which I’ve already mentioned.

But why should such a relatively remote and sparsely populated place be the location for so much supernatural phenomena? In terms of explanations, two are offered ; the Ley Lines and the Gypsey Race River, which grant Newton Wold a unique place in the paranormal world.

The Wold has more recently become associated with some of the greatest heroes and villains of pulp, crime and science fiction; the home of a literary conceit conceived by legendary fantasy/sci-fi writer Philip Jose Farmer (1918-2009). In 1795, this part of the Yorkshire Wolds was disturbed by what came to be known as the Wold Cottage meteorite, which supposedly led to genetic mutations in the local population. The object is currently on display at London’s Natural History Museum:

rudston monolith
Wikimedia Commons

A monument marks the spot where the stone fell, with this inscription:

Here On this Spot, Decr. 13th, 1795
Fell from the Atmoſphere
AN EXTRAORDINARY STONE
In Breadth 28 inches
In Length 36 inches and
Whole Weight was 56 pounds.
THIS COLUMN
In Memory of it Was erected by
EDWARD TOPHAM
1799
Wikimedia Commons

Mischievous supernatural spirits, known as ‘Boggles’, lurk in the area, causing chaos and fires on the roads - to this day:

In addition, it was/is believed that each dale in the Triangle possessed its own brand of hobgoblins that help, or hinder, both locals and the relatively few visitors. They apparently resemble small hairy men and regularly interacted/interact with humans. Having lived near the area, the description pretty much nails the local inhabitants, so I would take this with a (fairly large) pinch of salt.

A family at Hart Hall Farm in Glaisdale had been aided by their hobgoblin for generations and it was indeed mutually beneficial. The head of the house caught sight of the creature at his work late at night, and was shocked to see he was buck naked, aside from his covering of coarse, matted hair. Instead of milk or cream, he decided to pay that night with a smock for it to wear. But the hobgoblin was incredibly insulted, bellowing at the master for the correct payment and abandoning the hall. The sprite didn’t want to cause any harm or mischief, but never helped them out again.

rudston monolith
Hart Hall Glaisdale (Wikimedia Commons)

A Yorkshire hobgoblin supposedly inhabits the cliffs at Boggle Hole. Stroll along the beach from Robin Hood’s Bay and you’ll find a rocky cove with a youth hostel set in an historic mill.

If you linger beside the rock pool looking for fossils, you may just catch a glimpse of the Boggle, either ambling towards you, or on a mission further afield...

Editor’s note to Mysteries and Monsters podcaster - please correct you spelling mistake. This Week - not This Weel.

For further reference:

Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE, is available on Amazon Kindle; a new book, titled THE FORTUNATE ONE, will be published later this year.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7

Monday, 6 October 2025

The Vertical Plane Revisited: Inside the Dodleston Messages

Most ghost stories walk familiar ground. Someone complains about a cold draft that has no source, or they glimpse a shadow moving where no person stands, or maybe a staircase groans as if carrying a hidden weight. People nod along because that’s what they expect from such tales. Dodleston messages refused to follow that script. In the 1980s, in that quiet Cheshire village, the haunting skipped the attic and the corridor. It showed up instead on a BBC Micro computer, lines of text glowing in green, as though someone from another century had discovered the keyboard.

Meadow Cottage and the Early Disturbances

​Meadow Cottage looked ordinary enough when Ken Webster and his partner Debbie moved in during the autumn of 1984. It was the kind of place you might picture in a postcard, quiet evenings, steady routines, nothing remarkable at all. Yet the stillness didn’t last. Within weeks, odd disturbances began to chip away at that sense of calm.

​Cans of food were discovered stacked in precarious towers. Chalk lines appeared on the walls with no explanation. They even noticed prints in the dust, shaped like feet but with six toes, not five. Anyone who knew their folklore would have thought straight away of poltergeists, those restless spirits famous for pranks and noise. For a time, that seemed the most sensible answer, but it did not hold for long.

The First Messages

Dodleston Messages

​Among the cottage’s possessions was a BBC Micro Model B computer, a workhorse of the 1980s. One day, Webster found new files saved in its word processor program. No one in the household had written them. Inside were lengthy passages in odd, old-fashioned English.

​The writer introduced himself as “L.W.,” later switching to “Lukas.” He said he was a man of the sixteenth century, living on the same ground where Meadow Cottage now stood. His words were inconsistent, sometimes awkward, yet carried a conviction that suggested a living voice behind them.

​After weeks of exchanges, the writer revealed himself as Thomas Harden. He spoke of tending his garden, of neighbors whose suspicion weighed heavily on him, and of living under the eyes of the sheriff’s men who accused him of witchcraft. His words painted a man torn between learning and faith, watching his back at every turn.

​What startled the Websters most was Harden’s apparent ability to glimpse their world. He once wrote about a photograph of a Jaguar car left on a table, describing it as if it were some bizarre contraption. He commented on furnishings in the cottage, objects he could not possibly have known about if the story were nothing more than a fantasy.

​A Tudor’s Glimpse of the Present

​As the correspondence unfolded, Harden’s curiosity about the modern age grew. He puzzled over light without fire, over warmth in the rooms when no hearth burned, and over food kept in vessels he did not recognize. Things the Websters considered normal read like enchantments to him.

​Harden’s letters showed more than fear; they showed fascination. Once he wrote about Debbie’s clothing in a way that made her seem like a stranger dropped from another world. Modern fabrics and colors appeared otherworldly to him. These descriptions gave the correspondence an almost dreamlike texture, as though the centuries were folding into one another right there in the cottage.

The Arrival of 2109

​Then came a third voice. This one signed itself “2109.” It did not write in Tudor rhythms, nor in warm conversational tones. Instead, the words arrived clipped, abrupt, almost like orders.

​2109 told the Websters that the strange exchange was part of an experiment. They were warned not to interfere, since the balance of events across centuries could be damaged. The notes carried an unnerving authority. Little was revealed about who or what 2109 was, only that “we are watching, we are guiding, we are correcting.”

​Sometimes, 2109 broke into ongoing conversations between Harden and the Websters. The effect was jarring: a Tudor villager begging for reassurance, a modern couple struggling to respond, and a brusque presence from the future interrupting to remind everyone of the rules.

A Dialogue Across Three Centuries

​By then the whole thing had shifted. It was no longer just about a ghost sending odd notes. The dialogue stretched across three fronts: a Tudor man writing in fear, a modern couple trying to keep up, and a cryptic voice from a future century that offered few answers.

​It was not the sort of haunting anyone could have predicted. Instead, it became a conversation stretched across time, entangling three worlds at once.

Dodleston Messages
The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster

The Vertical Plane

​In 1989, Webster set down the account in a book called The Vertical Plane. It introduced readers to a haunting where old-fashioned poltergeist mischief gave way to spectral conversations through a word processor. Harden’s archaic voice, the eerie presence of 2109, and the surreal image of a ghost communicating through a computer made the book unlike anything that had come before.

​The book fascinated its readers, but it did not stay in print. Over time, it slipped into obscurity. Secondhand copies became scarce. Word spread among enthusiasts, and collectors began hunting it down, speaking of it as if it were a rare prize worth chasing.

​Then in 2022, a new edition appeared. The response was immediate. Podcasts devoted episodes to the Dodleston Messages. YouTube channels dramatized the text. Online forums dissected every claim. The story was reborn in an era more accustomed to the idea of digital hauntings.

Support and Skepticism

​Believers pointed to Harden’s language as too convincing to be the work of an amateur. Webster consulted Peter Trinder, a local teacher with a background in English, who supported the authenticity of the phrasing. To those inclined to believe, this seemed like evidence the case was genuine.

Skeptics had plenty to say. They pointed out awkward spellings, clumsy archaisms, and phrases that sounded closer to parody than to Tudor English. A few even noticed that Harden’s sentences echoed Webster’s own style, suggesting the book might be more literary trick than paranormal breakthrough.

​The Society for Psychical Research briefly considered the case but never published a full report. Without their stamp of investigation, the Dodleston Messages remained in the gray zone, unproven, but not dismissed either.

Digital Folklore and Echoes of the Present

​From today’s perspective, the Dodleston case feels ahead of its time. In the 1980s, the thought of a ghost typing into a computer was almost absurd. Now, with artificial intelligence producing convincing text and myths spreading across the internet in hours, the idea does not seem quite so ridiculous.

​Hauntings have always adapted to the tools of their age. Spirits once scratched on walls or knocked on tables. Later, they spoke through radios or appeared in ghost photographs. In Dodleston, they left files on a BBC Micro. In our own age, stories of digital hauntings and uncanny algorithms feel like a continuation of the same pattern.

Dodleston Messages
Second Edition includes additional material and further thoughts by the author, thirty-six years later.

​The Mystery’s Legacy

​By 1986, Webster and Debbie had left Meadow Cottage. Harden’s final message was a farewell. 2109 announced their work was complete. No more files appeared.

​The lack of closure only deepened the fascination. Believers continue to see it as evidence of time-spanning communication. Skeptics continue to treat it as a hoax. And others remain in the middle, seeing it less as proof than as a powerful story about possibility, imagination, and fear.

​Decades later, The Vertical Plane still refuses to fade. The Dodleston Messages endure not because anyone solved them but precisely because they remain unsolved. They remind us that hauntings change shape with the times, that the line between past and present can blur in unexpected ways, and that the strangest stories may not drift from attics or ruined halls at all, but blink into life on the screen of a machine.

​References

​HowStuffWorks. “Did a 16th-Century Ghost Haunt a 1980s Computer in the Dodleston Messages?” Last modified July 2021. https://science.howstuffworks.com/dodleston-messages.htm

​Ruffles, Tom. Ghost Images: Cinema of the Afterlife. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004.

​Society for Psychical Research. “Dodleston Messages.” Case files and reviews, 1985–1989.

​Webster, Ken. The Vertical Plane. London: Grafton/HarperCollins, 1989.

​The Vertical Plane, Second Edition. Norwich: Iris Publishing, 2022.

​Woolley, Matthew. “The Haunted BBC Micro: Revisiting the Dodleston Messages.” Journal of Digital Folklore 12, no. 3 (2019): 44–58.

​YouTube. “The Dodleston Messages Explained.” Posted by Bedtime Stories, March 2023.