Why are cats associated with witchcraft

Q. Witch craze

A. A superstitious era when may people were obsessed with witches as being the cause of everything that went wrong - from infant mortality to sour milk. Usually an unpopular member of the community was charged with witchcraft and tortured into confession.

Q. But how did poor puss get roped in

A. Alleged witches would often tell, in their trial testimony, of a strange cat that entered a household at night to attack babies or smother sleepers. Some witches confessed that they could change their shape into a cat to reach their victims.

Q. By casting a spell

A. In the 17th Century, an alleged witch, Isobel Gowdie, revealed the spell for turning herself into a cat and back into a woman again. To change into a cat, she would say:

I shall goe intill ane catt,

With sorrow, and sych, and a blak shott;

And I sall goe in the Divellis nam,

Ay will I com hom againe.

Q. But what about cats as familiars

A. Yes. A familiar - a supernatural spirit that helps witches and sorcerers – often took the form of an animal, perhaps a toad or frog … ut usually a cat.

Q. Why

A. Statistically, more people kept cats than toads. Cats are, after all, good at killing vermin and therefore more were kept in households. Accusers would have ignored the most likely explanation that puss was a mouse-catcher, not an evil being in feline disguise. Cats accused of being witches' familiars were generally burned alive with the witch. There were, however, many other superstitions connected with cats (click here for an Answerbank feature on some of them).

Q. What about devil worship

A. Many black cats were thought to be the Devil himself (I know a particular Burmese called Kipper who may fit this description) and on Easter and Shrove Tuesday during the Middle Ages, black cats were routinely hunted down and burned. Testimony in many trials portrayed witches or heretics as gathering together to kiss a black cat's backside. According to William of Paris's 12th-Century work De Legibus: 'Satan is believed to appear in the form of a black cat ... and to demand kisses from his adherents: One abominable kiss, under the cat's tail...'

Q. Other examples of feline powers

A. If a cat jumped over a corpse, it would become a vampire. A cat boiled in oil was believed in the 17th Century to be excellent for dressing wounds. Illnesses could be transferred to cats, which were then driven from the house. A cat buried in a field would ensure a bountiful crop. But to destroy crops, some witches filled the skin of a cat with vegetables, dried it, ground up the mixture and scattered the dust across the land as a sacrifice to the Devil, to destroy the crops.

Q. So witches weren't always very kind to their cats

A. Not always. But often they demanded respect. In one legend, a witch's cat was killed in the Lake District, England, by an innkeeper's dog. The old woman stood by while the innkeeper's servant, Willan, dug a grave. The old hag asked him to read some verses at the feline funeral, but he refused, mocking her. She vowed vengeance. The next day, as he was ploughing the innkeeper's field, the blade caught hit a rock. The handles flew up into the air and pierced Willans's eyes, blinding him.

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By Steve Cunningham