Elizabeth Sawyer stood on the gallows, waiting for her execution. Henry Good call the local priest,

read her confession out loud to her and the rest of the gathered crowd, and then she nodded in

agreements. Yes, Elizabeth told him, it's all true. It's true that she formed a pact with the

devil who had given her the power to afflict her neighbors with all manner of pain and suffering.

After all, they had refused to purchase brooms from her, so she used the power of the devil to

kill their livestock and even one or two of their young children. But that power came at a price.

In return for it, the devil had asked that Elizabeth take in one of his servants, a creature known

throughout folklore as a familiar. Her familiar was called Tom, and in exchange for the power

that she would draw from it, Tom was to be allowed to feed from her, succulent at an odd patch of

skin known as a witch's mark. Henry Good call hadn't believed the stories. After all, it was a bit

too difficult to accept much of the details, even for a priest to believe in the supernatural

nature of God. It all sounded too convenient, too contrived, and of course, it was all used to

throw Elizabeth and Jail where she was awaiting her execution. So Henry had visited her, hoping to

discover the truth. But the confession she gave him, the same one he would read from the gallows,

backed up all of the tales. She had suckled Tom every day, and in return she had wielded the

power of the devil against the neighbors who had crossed her, and on April 19th of 1621, she hanged

for those crimes. All of this would haunt the community she left behind for years to come.

They would whisper about her evil powers and her crimes, about how counter magic was used to

identify her and the morbid victory of her execution day. But it was her familiar, Tom, who would be

remembered the most. Because it sits on the edge between a modern belief and a much more ancient

idea, an idea not represented by the behavior or powers she claimed it had, but by the very shape

it had taken, a shape that continues to inhabit a terrifying place in folklore today.

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