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Familiars (or familiar spirits) are supernatural spirits often assuming animal form, supposed to attend and aid a witch, wizard, and cunning folks in their practice of magic in European folklore of the Medieval and Early Modern periods.

When they served witches, they were often thought to be malevolent demons, but when working for cunning folk they were often considered benevolent fairies. The main purpose of familiars was to serve the witch or young witch, providing protection for them as they came into their new powers.

There are three main types of encounters to their familiar. The familiar spontaneously appeared in front of the individual while they were going about their daily activities, either in their home or outdoors somewhere.

The familiars would be given to a person by a pre-existing individual, who was sometimes a family member and at other times a more powerful spirit.

Or, they could be summoned through the use of ritual.

Cats were the favored malevolent forms of familiars, especially black ones. The fear that all cats were Witches’ familiars was one of the primary reasons for the famous cat massacres that swept through medieval Europe.

In some cases, familiars are not confined to physical bodies. Although they play the same role as animal familiars, spirit familiars are more versatile in that they can move about more freely. The presence of these spirit familiars is often experienced as a voice, vision, or strong feeling of peace.

It is a common belief that the person usualy experinces difficulty prior to the appearance of the familiar, who offered to aid them. The folktales such as Rumpelstiltskin, Puss-in-Boots and the Frog Prince, are the wellknown examples of familiars who aproach to the protogonaist of the tales when they are in need of help.

• Familiar, Wikipedia
• Familiar Species, fandom.com
• Familiar, wikia.org