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| Mither o’ Mawkins |
In medieval Scotland, the legendary head witch was known as the Mither o’ Mawkins—that is, Mother of Mawkins, and a mawkin or malkin is a cat (or a rabbit). You might recall that in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one of the three witches calls out, “I come, Graymalkin.”
She was calling out to a gray cat, and the audience would have known that every witch had to have cats, which were always the “familiars,” or companions, of witches.
