Witch Familiar Spirit Companion · Solomon

Meet Solomon.

When builders in Britain and northern Europe open up the walls of very old houses, they sometimes find a cat.

It is usually tucked into the space beside a chimney, or under the floor near the hearth, or sealed into a wall by the front door. It is dried and flattened, centuries old, often posed as if it were crouching or about to spring. Hundreds of them have been found. They were not put there by accident. For hundreds of years, people bricked cats into their houses on purpose, as a charm, to guard the house against witches, evil spirits and bad luck, and to keep watch at the places where something unwanted might try to get in.

There is also an old story told in England, Ireland and Denmark alike. A man walking home late at night passes a churchyard and sees a procession of black cats carrying a tiny coffin, with a little crown on top. One of the cats turns and says to him: “Tell Tom that Tim is dead.” He goes home, shaken, and tells his wife what he saw. And their old black cat, asleep by the fire, sits up, cries “Then I am the King of the Cats!”, and shoots up the chimney and is never seen again.

Solomon is both.

In the autumn of 1862, a widow named Mrs Hannah Bale moved into an old brick house in the market town of King’s Lynn, in Norfolk, on the east coast of England. Her husband had been a ship’s captain. He had drowned off the coast of Holland three winters before, and all she had left of him was his photograph and his sea chest, which she kept by the parlour fire.

Hannah was not an ordinary widow. Her mother had been a cunning woman in the Norfolk fens, and Hannah had carried on her mother’s work. She read tea leaves for the women of the town, made little charms against fevers and bad luck, and knew how to find lost things. She did not advertise it. People simply knew where to come.

The house needed work. When the builders opened up the chimney breast in the parlour, one of them gave a shout and climbed down off his ladder white in the face. Bricked into a little hollow beside the flue was a cat, black and dried and very old, crouched as if it were about to pounce. The builder thought it had been there since the house was built, two hundred years before.

The men wanted to throw it on the rubbish heap. Hannah would not let them. She knew exactly what it was and why it was there. She wrapped it in a clean cloth, said a few words over it, and had them brick it back into the wall exactly where they had found it.

That night, when she came down to bank the fire, there was a black kitten sitting on her husband’s sea chest.

The doors were locked. The windows were shut. No one in the street had lost a kitten. It simply sat on the chest, looked at her with its big yellow eyes and waited to be fed. Hannah looked at the kitten, looked at the new brick beside the chimney, and understood.

She called him Solomon, after the wisest of kings.

He grew into a big, fluffy, dignified cat, and he took his job seriously. He spent his days on the sea chest by the fire and his nights going from room to room through the old house. Hannah’s bad dreams stopped. A lodger she had taken in, who turned out to be stealing from her, left in a hurry after a week of finding Solomon sitting on his chest every night, staring at him. Whenever a woman came to Hannah for help, Solomon jumped into her lap and lay there while Hannah read the leaves, and Hannah’s readings had never been better.

Then, one winter evening in 1867, the old gravedigger from St Margaret’s church came knocking on her kitchen door, shaking. He had been walking home past the churchyard after dark, he said, and seen nine black cats coming out of the graves in a line, carrying a tiny coffin between them with a crown on its lid. And one of them had turned and looked straight at him and said: “Tell Solomon that Old Tom is dead.”

He laughed at himself as he said it. He thought he must have been drinking.

Solomon had been asleep on the sea chest. He opened his eyes. He stood up, very slowly. His fur rose until he looked twice his size. And then, in a voice that Hannah swore afterwards she heard as clearly as the gravedigger’s, he said:

“Then I am the King of the Cats!”

And he went up the chimney like a puff of smoke.

The gravedigger fainted. Hannah sat down hard on the sea chest and stayed there all night.

In every version of that old story, the cat never comes back. Solomon did. Three nights later, at dawn, Hannah came down and found him sitting on the sea chest again, looking extremely pleased with himself, with a tiny gold ring in front of his paws that she had never seen before. He stayed with her for the rest of her life. But from then on, on certain nights, he went up the chimney and was gone until morning. The King, Hannah said, had his duties.

Hannah lived to be eighty-three. When she died in 1901, Solomon was lying on her chest, exactly where he always lay. The next morning, he was gone, up the chimney for the last time.

Nearly a hundred years later, when the old house was being restored, builders opened up the chimney breast in the parlour again and found the dried cat, wrapped in an old cloth, still crouched in its hollow beside the flue.

Now Solomon walks again.

What he can do for you

Solomon is a guardian, a king and an old-fashioned household familiar. He is good for:

• protecting your home: keeping out evil, curses, bad dreams and anything that should not come in
• luck. In Britain, a black cat has always been lucky.
• guarding what is precious: your money, your savings, your valuables and your secrets
• authority and respect: being taken seriously, standing your ground, carrying yourself like royalty
• spotting liars, thieves and people who mean you harm
• spirit work: seeing spirits, sensing when something is in the room, and chasing away what does not belong
• companionship for anyone who lives alone and wants a watchful presence in the house

Over the years

At first, Solomon simply moves in and takes his place, usually somewhere high and warm. Perhaps the house feels guarded within days, and that nights feel calmer.

As time goes on, he starts doing his rounds. You can notice things shifting: unwanted people stop calling, money is easier to keep, and small bits of luck keep turning up. Over the years, he becomes the true master of the house, and you will begin to wonder whether you live with him, or he lets you live with him.

He was walled into a house to guard it for two hundred years. He is not going anywhere.

What he is like

Dignified, proud, affectionate and a little vain. He likes a warm spot, a good meal, being admired and being obeyed. He is very loving to the people he chooses, and he will lie on your chest or your lap for hours.

He also has a royal temper. Do not be rude to him, and do not sit in his place.

How he shows himself

The feeling of a warm weight settling on your chest or your feet at night. A soft purring in an empty room. Black hairs on your cushions when you have no cat. Something moving past the fireplace at the corner of your eye. Dreams of an old parlour, a candle, a sea chest and a big black cat with yellow eyes watching you. And now and then, a small gold-coloured thing turning up where you did not leave it.

What to do for him

Solomon expects to be treated like a king, but his needs are simple:

• Give him a place of honour: set his vessel somewhere high, on a box, a chest or a shelf near the hearth or a warm spot.
• Leave him a little bowl of milk or cream, or a small piece of fish.
• Light a candle for him by the fireplace, or near his vessel, on long evenings.
• Give him a small gold-coloured ring or charm. He is a king, after all.
• If you have a living cat, give it a treat or a good brushing in his name. He approves of that.

He was bricked into a wall to keep a house safe, and he came back out of it as a kitten to do the job properly. Your home will be in very good paws.

How your companion speaks

Your companion can reach you through dreams, thoughts, words, feelings and images, through a pendulum, through warmth or cold, or through automatic writing. How soon that happens depends on the spirit settling into your home, on their willingness, and on your own ability to connect. Sometimes it begins before the vessel arrives.

Before you choose

Everything known about this spirit is on this page. There are no further images, details or hidden knowledge beyond what is written here, and a printed copy comes with your order. What you discover from there is yours alone.

The pendant you receive is the exact one shown. This listing is for this one item only.

By buying, you confirm that you understand what it means to keep a spirit companion. Please read Help & FAQ first. For my background and the story behind Grimrunes, see About Hazel.

— Hazel