The connection between cats and witches is notorious enough, dating at least from the classic story of Galanthis being turned into a cat, and becoming, through the compassion of Hecate, her priestess. The picture of a witch is incomplete without her cat, by rights a black one. It is curious that at Scarborough, a few years back, sailors’ wives liked to keep black cats in their homes, to insure the safety of their husbands at sea. This gave black cats such a value that no one else could keep them; they were always stolen. Mr. Denham has recorded some curious old north-country rhymes on the subject:
Whenever the cat o’ the house is black,
The lasses o’ lovers will have no lack.
Kiss the black cat,
An’ ’twill make ye fat;
Kiss the white ane,
’T will make ye lean.
In accordance with the former, an old north-country woman said lately to a lady, “It”s na wonder Jock ——’s lasses marry off so fast, ye ken what a braw black cat they’ve got.” Naturally enough it is considered extremely lucky for a cat of this kind to come of her own accord and take up her residence in any house. During the November of 1867, in Pennsylvania, a woman was publicly accused of witchcraft for administering three drops of a black cat’s blood to a child as a remedy for croup. She admitted the fact, but denied that witchcraft had anything to do with it, and twenty witnesses were called to prove its success. Professor Marreco, of Newcastle, has communicated to me the following curious
witches and warlocks gathered in great multitudes under the shape of cats. Four or five men were attacked in a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood their ground with the utmost bravery, succeeded in slaying one puss, and wounded many others. Next day a number of wounded women were found in the town, and they gave the judge an accurate account of all the circumstances connected with their wounding.—The Book of Werewolves, by the Rev. S. Baring Gould, pp. 64, 65.
Note that in England the extirpation of wolves under the Anglo-Saxon kings has altered the ancient legends of lycanthropy into stories of transformation into hares and cats.—S. B. G.
