I always associate it with Saki's early 20th century story Sredni Vashtar, where the object of an oppressed small boy's religious fervour is a "polecat ferret":
a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret....
And in the end it does away with the oppressive cousin:
out through that doorway came a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.
OK, even more esoteric, but it's a good story!
Kate
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Peter Edge [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 November 2013 20:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question
This side of the Atlantic (albeit mid-Irish sea) – colloquial connotations of a vicious weasel as Nick says, but also perhaps with a hint of the sexual?
Peter.
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Forshaw, Peter
Sent: 25 November 2013 19:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question
Ben Jonson mentions both ferret and pole-cat in The Alchemist, which might be a useful literary reference for a discussion of Yeats.
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Dr Peter J Forshaw
Assistant Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period<http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/p.j.forshaw/>
Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents
University of Amsterdam
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The Netherlands
Editor-in-Chief Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism<http://www.brill.nl/aries/>
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Nicholas Campion [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 November 2013 20:34
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question
A ferret may be more weasely. I’d say a polecat veers towards to the more aggressive end of the spectrum.
Nick Campion
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Susan Johnston Graf
Sent: 25 November 2013 19:28
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] an animal question
I am wondering if my colleagues across the water can help me out with a bit of animal symbolism. I am working on a Yeats poem, “the Gyres,” and he references a polecat. I did not know what that is because, as far as I can tell, we do not have them in the US, at least not where I have lived. We do have weasels, animals with very definite connotations. My question is whether or not polecats have the same kind of weaselly reputation. I have heard people refer to unsavory, sneaky, self-interested, back-biting individuals as “weasels.” Would the same be applied to polecats? Sorry for this pedantic and not very esoteric question.
Yours,
Susan
Susan Johnston Graf, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Penn State Mont Alto,
Mont Alto, PA 17237
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