The Black Pullet

What It's About

The Black Pullet presents itself as the memoir of an anonymous French officer serving in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Ambushed by Bedouins near the Pyramids and left for dead, the officer is nursed back to health by an aged Turkish sage living in a hidden chamber within one of the pyramids. In gratitude, the sage shares with him secrets supposedly drawn from ancient manuscripts that survived the destruction of the Library of Alexandria — the science of crafting magical talismans and rings, and the means of producing the Black Pullet itself, a hen said to lay golden eggs and locate buried treasure.

Key Concepts

The book is structured as a practical manual built around this framing story. It details the construction of talismanic rings and amulets for purposes such as invisibility, commanding love, and summoning spirits, along with Kabbalistic and necromantic elements drawn from the Western ceremonial magic tradition. Its central and most famous teaching is the creation of the Black Pullet, a magical hen believed capable of finding hidden riches — a motif with clear echoes of older treasure-hen folklore and fairy tales.

About the Author

No author is known. The text presents itself as the work of an anonymous French officer, but this is now generally regarded as a literary device rather than fact. Scholars instead attribute the grimoire's composition to the wave of "Egyptomania" that followed Napoleon's 1798 expedition, with its claimed earlier origin likely invented to lend the work a false air of ancient authority.