The Cat Sìth (Scottish Gaelic: [kʰaht̪ ˈʃiː]) or Cat Sidhe (Irish: [kat̪ˠ ˈʃiː], Cat Sí in new orthography) is a fairy creature from Celtic mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Legend has it that the spectral cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish folklore, but a few occur in Irish. Some common folklore suggested that the Cat Sìth was not a fairy, but a witch that could transform into a cat nine times.

As proposed by British cryptozoologist, Karl Shuker, in his book Mystery Cats of the World (1989), it is possible that the legends of the Cat Sìth were inspired by Kellas cats, which are probably a distinctive hybrid between Scottish wildcats and domestic cats only found in Scotland (the Scottish wildcat is a subspecies of the European wildcat, which is absent from elsewhere in the British Isles).

Typical Kellas cats (pictured here) resemble large black wildcats, but with some peculiar features closer to domestic cats, and have probably been present in Scotland for centuries, maybe even some two millennia or more. Others believe that the Cat Sìth was inspired by the Scottish wildcat itself.

In the British folk tale The King of the Cats, a man comes home to tell his wife and cat, Old Tom, that he saw nine black cats with white spots on their chests carrying a coffin with a crown on it, and one of the cats tells the man to “Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum is dead.” The cat then exclaims, “What?! Old Tim dead! Then I’m the King o’ the Cats!” Old Tom then climbs up the chimney and is never seen again.

@willow-wife

“The jug being emptied, one of them cried out, ‘Is it time to be gone?’ and at the same moment, putting on a red cap, she added -

‘By yarrow and rue, And my red cap too, Hie over to England’

Making use of a twig which she held in her hand as a steed, she gracefully soared up the chimney, and was rapidly followed by the rest [the other two witches]”

This passage from The Witches Excursion by Patrick Kennedy in WB Yeats’ Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry depicts the magical use of yarrow in a flying spell [for more, see my post on yarrow in folklore and healing].

Householder Shemus Rua heads off on a ‘broomstick’ ride across the Irish Sea, following his housekeeper and her two witch companions after finding them making merry in his kitchen.

The picture is an old woodcut from a 1720 collection depicting both male and female witches flying on broomsticks. [Photo: Wellcome Library, London]

Between a Rock and a Hard Place —- The Pressing of Giles Corey, Salem Witch Trials, 1692

Until around the 1700’s many common law systems in European courts had no jurisdiction over defendants until the defendant entered a plea.  In essence a court could only try an accused person if they voluntarily allowed themselves to be tried in court.  Naturally very few criminals would volunteer to be tried in a court of law when there was a good chance of being found guilty and it was not uncommon for people to neither plead “guilty” or “innocent” in hope of escaping prosecution.

Thus the courts began to impose a very brutal method to coerce the accused into entering a plea.  Called peine forte et dure (hard and forceful punishment) or “pressing”, the accused would be seized and placed under a large flat board or platform.  Then weights or large stones would slowly be placed on top of the platform until he or she entered a plea.  The accused was left with a the choice of either entering a plea or being crushed to death.  Most entered a plea.

The most famous case of pressing in America occurred in Massachusetts in 1692.  There in the town of Salem hysteria was rampant as many of the townspeople were accused, tried, and hanged for witchcraft.  One colonist named Giles Corey was accused of being a warlock and was ordered to stand trial in Essex.  Like many before him Corey refused to enter a plea.  On September 17th, 1692 the pressing of Corey began under the supervision of Sheriff George Corwin.  Corey was stripped naked and laid in a small ditch with large wooden planks placed on his body.  Then several large rocks were placed on his stomach and chest.  Corey neither cried out or entered a plea, but only replied “more weight” with each round of stones.  He endured this torture for two days until he took his last labored breath on Sept. 19th 1692.  According to legend his last words were, “more weight”.

Today in a court of law not entering a plea is legally considered the same a pleading “not guilty”.

Legend of Byard’s Leap (Lincolnshire,UK)

Black Meg was a man-eating ogress who lived in a cave on the wild and lonely expanse of Ancaster Heath. She terrorised the countryside for miles around, devouring anyone she came across. Her foul, evil spells made the land barren and she used her long iron claws to maul and kill livestock.

An errant knight found himself in the vicinity of Cranwell one day. Hearing the plight of the local populace, he resolved to rid them once and for all of Black Meg’s curses. The villagers thanked him and promised that he could have his pick of any of their horses to help him in his task.

The knight was taken to a field by a pond where the villager’ horses were kept. He inspected the horses one by one and noticed one of them was blind. He was told its name was Bayard. The knight said he would take whichever horse had the keenest senses, and threw a large rock into the pond. In an instant, blind Bayard looked up from his grazing in the direction of the water. The knight vowed to ride Bayard, as he was the only horse who would not be frightened of Black Meg’s appearence. Mounting his new steed, the knight rode off to Ancaster Heath, calling a challenge to Meg as he approached her cave. She responded with an evil cackle,

“I’ll buckle me shoes, And suckle me brood, And I’ll soon be wi’ you, laddie!”

She soon appeared from the mouth of the cave, her face contorted in a wicked snarl and her iron claws glinting in the sunlight. The knight clasped the spurs into Byard’s side and charged forward, slashing at the ogress’ shoulder with his sword. She howled in pain and leapt at the horse and its rider, digging her needle-sharp claws into Byard’s rump.

The blind horse reared up onto its hind legs and leapt high into the air, taking Black Meg with it, landing a full sixty feet away and crushing the ogress beneath him. The knight stood up and, seeing that Black Meg lay dead, comforted the poor horse, which now lay bleeding to death on the ground.

The villagers were now free of the evil which had blighted them for so long, and buried Black Meg under a large stone at the crossroads with a stake through her heart to prevent her ever returning. To this day, they will proudly point out the marks, sixty feet apart, of horse prints in the rock, which blind Byard made during his final leap.

Pliny in his work Natural History (VIII.72 and 107) variously described the crocotta as a combination between dog and wolf or between hyena and lion. Of the hyena, Pliny writes that it “is popularly believed to be bisexual and to become male and female in alternate years, the female bearing offspring without any male,” and that “among the shepherds’s homesteads it simulates human speech, and picks up the name of one of them so as to call him to come out of doors and tear him to pieces, and also that it imitates a person being sick, to attract the dogs so that it may attack them; that this animal alone digs up corpses; that a female is seldom caught; that its eyes have a thousand variations of color; moreover that when its shadow falls on dogs they are struck dumb; and that it has certain magic arts by which it causes every animal at which it gazes three times to stand rooted to the spot. When crossed with this race of animals the Ethiopian lioness gives birth to the corocotta, that mimics the voices of men and cattle in a similar way. It has a unbroken ridge of bone in each jaw, forming a continuous tooth without any gum.

…It is said to imitate the human voice, to call men by name at night, and to devour those who approach it. It is as brave as a lion, as swift as a horse, and as strong as a bull. It cannot be overcome by any weapon of steel.

…Later bestiaries of the Middle Ages confounded these various accounts, so that one finds the largely mythical creature given differing names and various characteristics, real and imaginary. Among the characteristics not found in the ancient sources was the idea that the eyes of a crocotta were striped gems that could give the possessor oracular powers when placed under the tongue.

Since it’s racist appropriation for white people to say “___ is my spirit animal”, I feel like all I can say is that the witchier I get, the more I’d want one of these to be my, as they are called, familiar. Nic Bravo, let’s be able to turn into these, yeah?

Obviously putting one of these in my novel because genderfluid cat-dog with LSD eyeballs and man eating ventriloquism.

the punishment of witches, again

woodcutting of punishment to witches

The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancashire

A somewhat Hallowe’en themed oddment. It’s a bit of a long read but it’s pretty interesting:

The 1612 Pendle Witch trials are perhaps the most famous in English history, involving twelve individuals accused of murdering ten people by witchcraft. Two families were primarily concerned, each with octogenarian matriarchs: Demdike, her daughter, and grandchildren, then Chattox and her daughter.

The Justice of the Peace for Pendle Hill in Lancashire, a county “fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity,” was tasked by James I to seek out religious nonconformists, and it was with this attitude that he heard allegations made by a John Law, who claimed to be the victim of witchcraft.

Walking along a quiet path Law encountered Alizon, the infamous Demdike’s granddaughter, who asked him for some metal pins. Such pins were often used for magical purposes – healing, treating warts, divination, and for love magic, which may be why Law refused. A moment later he slumped to the ground. Initially he made no accusations against Alizon, but she appears to have been convinced of her own powers, later confessing to Law, who convalesced at a nearby inn.

At court Alizon confessed she had sold her soul to the Devil and she told him to lame Law after he had called her a thief. Her mother said Demdike had a mark on her body, which many would have regarded as having been left by the Devil after he had sucked her blood.

Alizon was also questioned about Chattox, another suspicious figure, and, seeing an opportunity for revenge, as there was much bad blood between their families, she accused Chattox of murdering five men by witchcraft, including her father. She claimed her father had been so frightened of Chattox that he gave her oatmeal each year so she wouldn’t hurt his family. On his deathbed he claimed that his sickness had been caused by Chattox because he missed a payment. 

Demdike, Chattox and her daughter Anne, were summoned to court. Both elderly and blind Demdike and Chattox provided damaging confessions. Demdike claimed that she had given her soul to the Devil 20 years ago, and Chattox that she had given her soul to “a Thing like a Christian man”, who promised “she would not lack anything and would get any revenge she desired”. A witness claimed her brother had fallen sick and died after having had a disagreement with Anne, and that he had frequently blamed her for his illness. All three were committed to gaol to be tried for maleficium.

Then Demdike’s daughter organised at meeting at their home, Malkin Tower. Those sympathetic to the family attended, but when officials heard they investigated to determine the purpose of it. As a result, eight more people were accused of witchcraft, including Demdike’s daughter.

All but two were tried in Lancaster in August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in a series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried in York, and another died in prison. Of the eleven who went to trial ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty.

[Written with (a lot of) help from Wikipedia]

Witch's Butter / Troll Cat Butter