Cats

 By Bruce Shawkey

Fascinating book on the Internet Archive about cats, copyright 1903. Snippets follow.

On the origin of the cat: When Noah made a couple of each kind of animal enter the Ark, his companions, as well as the members of his family, said to him, What security can there be for us and for the animals so long as the lion shall dwell with us in the same vessel ? ' The patriarch betook himself to prayer and entreated the Lord God. Immediately fever came down from Heaven and seized upon the king of beasts, so that tranquility of mind was restored to the inhabitants of the Ark. But there was in the vessel an enemy no less harmful—his was the mouse. The companions of Noah called his attention to the fact that it would be impossible for them to preserve their provisions and their clothes intact. After the patriarch had addressed renewed supplications to the Most High, the lion sneezed, and a cat ran out of his nostrils. From that time forth the mouse became so timid that it contracted the habit of hiding itself in holes.

Domestication in France and Great Britain: We have no record that the cat became domesticated in Great Britain and France before the ninth century, when it would seem that she was by no means common, and considered of great value; for in the time of one of the old Princes of Wales, who died in 948, the price of a kitten before it could see was fixed at a penny, after it had captured a mouse, two-pence; and if it gave further proofs of its usefulness it was rated at four-pence.

Cats and Witchcraft: Innumerable are the legends that gather round the cat during the Middle Ages. It was believed that the devil borrowed the coat of a black cat when he wished to torment his victims. Sorcerers pretended to cure epilepsy by the help of three drops of blood taken from the vein under a cat's tail. At numerous trials for witchcraft, the cat figured as the wicked associate of the accused. Cats were offered by sorcerers as offerings to Satan, and they were flung into the fire at the Festival of St .John. All praise to Louis XIII., who as the Dauphin interceded for the lives of these poor creatures thus annually sacrificed. It was thought to bring good luck to a house if a cat were cooked alive in a brick oven, and in Scotland a cat was roasted before a slow fire as a means of divining the future. The mania of witchcraft had pervaded all ranks, even the holy profession, whose duty it should be to preach peace and goodwill. Hundreds of wretched old women were sent out of life "in a red gown" (the slang of that day for being burnt " quick " or alive), after undergoing the most excruciating tortures to make them confess the impossibilities for which they suffered.

Pictures of cats: