Excerpt from Gertie Gets it Right (eventually) – Grothilde the cross-eyed witch:

Grothilde’s familiar was a large black rabbit, but that was simply by mistake. Ma remembered the tale well. Grothilde had misplaced her cat familiar. Well, she called it misplaced. Actually, Griselde had seen the poor cat falling off Grothilde’s broomstick in full flight, then running for cover in the hope of hanging on to its remaining eight lives. Grothilde’s ‘Staying on Broomstick’ spell wasn’t very strong, because she could only focus one eye at a time on the subject of her magic.

            For a while, the squint-eyed witch had been without a familiar. One day though, she was walking with her sister when she spotted a black shape go darting past out of the corner of her good eye. Calling to her sister to put a freeze spell on the shape, Grothilde ran after it.

            “Are you sure?” her puzzled sister had asked the retreating figure. She received no reply, so did as she was asked.

            By the time Grothilde saw the creature clearly enough to realise it wasn’t a cat after all, but a rabbit, she didn’t dare admit it. Being remembered for the Bat Spit spell was bad enough without going down in witch history for mistaking a rabbit for a cat too.

            “Did you think it was a cat?” Mona asked, a laugh beginning to play on the corners of her crooked, whiskery, mouth.

            “A cat? Course not,” lied Grothilde. “What would I want another cat for? They can’t even stay on broomsticks.”

            Mona was about to say that everyone else’s did, but thought better of it.

            “A rabbit. That’s what I want,” continued Grothilde trying to convince herself. “Clever these rabbits. You’ll see.”

            It hadn’t proved itself to be clever, but it hadn’t fallen off her broomstick yet either.