256 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard
ravens are now believed to be as smart as dogs. I have
never had a crow or raven myself, but I’ve met some
that other magickal people have, and they clearly have
a deep bond and familiar connection with their per-
son. Some states, however, now have laws against
keeping any kind of wild bird. Again, Wildlife Rescue
can be a wonderful resource.
If you live in the country, some barnyard fowl can
make excellent familiars. I once had a goose named
Gus, whom I raised from a hatchling. Geese are very
smart and can live to 50 years. But they are always
outdoor animals, because they crap constantly all over
the place! Gus was utterly devoted to me, and fol-
lowed me everywhere. Sadly, he froze to death one
bitterly cold Winter night because he wouldn’t go into
the goose house with the other geese and insisted on
staying outside by the back door.
Although most pets and familiars regard their hu-
man as a “mommy,” birds will treat their human as a mate.
They can be very possessive and jealous of your friends.Reptiles
My lifelong fascina-
tion with dinosaurs turned
my attention towards rep-
tiles at an early age, and I have kept quite a few of them.
A wide assortment of reptiles can be purchased at any
pet store. That 2001 pet census listed three million
snakes, turtles, and lizards in American homes. Box
turtles are excellent house and yard pets, and no trouble
whatsoever. They can live well over 100 years, and they
eat most anything, from veggies to bugs (they love
earthworms!). However, turtles are not particularly bright
or sensitive, and I wouldn’t recommend them as famil-
iars. Iguanas are also pretty cool, especially as they
like to hang out along the tops of curtains and drapes,
and they grow to be quite large (5–6 feet). They
are primarily vegetarians, but they also like
bugs, mealworms, and
raw hamburger.
Snakes make
great familiars— especially boas and pythons.
These giant serpents can grow to 10– 30 feet
long and are the most primitive of snakes, with little
spurs on the males where they once had hind legs.
Pythons lay eggs, but boas give birth to litters of live
babies. All snakes evolved from a kind of eyeless,
earless, legless, worm-like burrowing lizard. They had
to reinvent eyes entirely, as well as other senses unique
to them, such as infrared heat receptors. But they never
reinvented ears, and they have no sense of hearing
whatsoever. What they have instead is amazingly acute
psychic sensitivity. All snakes are predators, and they
must have whole animals to eat. Start with mice, and
graduate to rats. When they’re small, feeding once a
week is enough, and once a month when they get big.
If you feel drawn to have a serpent familiar, I rec-ommend a
boa constric-
tor. Boas have
been captive-bred for gen-
erations, so the best thing to do is find a pet shop that
has some babies. Put your hand down into the tank,
think loving thoughts, and wait to see if one of the
little guys will come to you and crawl up your arm. If
one does and then looks you right in the eyes, you’ve
got yourself a familiar! But keeping a tropical snake
like a boa or python is a big commitment, and you
need to have the right setup to keep them safe and
warm (85–95°F). If they escape from their well-heated
serpentarium into the outdoors, they can die of expo-
sure. Instead, you might want to start with a nice local
gopher snake that you get from a pet store.
My very best familiar ever was a Columbian red-
tailed boa that I named Histah. We were so deeply
bonded that I could dreamwalk with her in my sleep
(“borrowing”) as she crawled around at night. After
five years, she got mortally wounded in a tragic acci-
dent and could not be healed. One day, while I was
away at my job, I felt her presence in my mind, as she
was “borrowing” me. And then I felt her let go of her
body, and settle into mine. I called home immediately
and said, “Histah just died.”
My wife said, “No, I just saw her in the bathroom.”
I said, “Check again.”
After a minute she came back to the phone.
“You’re right. She’s dead. How did you know?”
I replied, “Because she’s in me now.”
And ever since, like Harry Potter, I have been a
“parseltongue,” with the ability to “talk” to snakes.Amphibians
Amphibians include frogs,
toads, newts, and salamanders.
Their name means “dweller in
two worlds,” because they
start out in life as water-breathing tadpoles and meta-
morphose (change) into four-legged air breathers. It
can be a fascinating experience to keep some tadpoles
in an aquarium and watch them go through their
changes. Unfortunately, these days many kinds of am-
phibians are becoming endangered, so it is not wise to
take adults from their natural habitats. However, some
kinds can be purchased in pet shops, and these are
alright. Even though Neville Longbottom has a toad
familiar named Trevor, amphibians aren’t very smart.
Maybe this is why the kids at Hogwarts preferred other
familiars. However, toads do live a long time—Trevor
could get to be 40. Did you know that toads and frogs
can only see things that are moving?Tarantulas
These large hairy spiders were among the first
creatures to live on dry land, more than 300 million
years ago. Back in those days, they were the size of- Spectrum 2.p65 256 1/15/2004, 9:31 AM