The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World. Judika Illes
In North African communities, cats may be djinn in disguise and so one is cautioned against ever harming a cat for fear of spiritual retribution.
Witch-hunter Jean Bodin insisted that all cats are witches in disguise. Nicholas Remy, another famed witch-hunter, argued that they were demons instead. Hungarian witch-lore suggests that cats do indeed become witches, but only between the ages of 7 and 12, and even this may be prevented. The Hungarians, a grain-producing people, who perhaps didn’t relish leaving their barns without feline protection, determined that shaving a cross into the cat’s fur was sufficient to rescue it from this fate. According to Somerset folklore, cats born in May were especially inclined to be witches in disguise and hence were frequently killed.
Stories of women transforming into cats are common witchcraft tales. A husband from Scotland’s Isle of Skye claimed to be perplexed by his wife’s secretive nightly excursions. One night he followed her and witnessed her transformation into a black cat. The wife invoked Satan’s name and sailed out to sea in a sieve with seven other cats. The husband invoked the Trinity and the sieve promptly overturned, drowning all the witches—or at least so said the husband, the only witness to his wife’s disappearance. One wonders how many other women’s disappearances were accounted for by those who swore that when last seen the women had transformed into cats or bats.
In a French variation on this theme, a woman was cooking an omelet when a black cat sauntered into her home and settled itself by her hearth. Apparently unfazed by her visitor, the woman did nothing but continue to cook. The cat stared at her for a few minutes then announced, “It’s done. Flip it over.”
In a traditional fairy tale, when a talking animal tells you something, it’s worth paying attention. However, in this story, the woman, seemingly unsurprised, only claimed to be outraged at being bossed around by a cat. She flung the hot pan at the cat, hitting it. The cat fled. The next morning, a malicious, “catty” neighbor was observed with a great red burn on her cheek.
There are millions of these stories, which are not limited to European origin. In Japanese folklore, cats transform into women who are frequently identified as witches. (Japan has a witchtradition but no history of European-style witch-hunts.) Sometimes these cats are saintly, if sexual. In the famous legend of Okesa the dancer, a devoted cat saves a human family from poverty by transforming into a prostitute and earning enough to support them.
Not all these legends are stories, at least not in the fictional sense; few of the documented tales have happy endings.
Cats were also identified with Satan, believed to favor the shape of a cat, inevitably a large black tom. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX declared that heretics worshipped the devil in the form of a black tom cat.
Of course one person’s devil is another person’s guardian spirit. In Slavic areas, especially Russia and Poland, the ovinnik, guardian spirit of the threshing barn takes the form of a huge disheveled black cat with glowing eyes. Offerings of blini or the last sheaves of grain are offered to him in exchanges for protection and divination services. The ovinnik is no cute, cuddly kitty; should he ever be seriously displeased, he’ll burn the barn down (frequently with the owner or his children within).
Elements of degraded, corrupt, perverted sacrifice are apparent in the treatment meted out to European cats, as if rather than venerating and preserving what is powerful and holy, it’s cruelly, wantonly, destroyed instead.
The torture and killing of cats occurred in various contexts: in conjunction with human witch trials, as random acts of violence, but also as organized, documented ritual killings:
(See CALENDAR: Midsummer’s; Ostara.)
Although all cats are associated with witchcraft, the black cat is most powerfully identified. Black cats’ special identification with witchcraft is not limited to Western European or post-Christian perspectives. Chinese, Hindu, Japanese, Jewish, North African, and Romany witch-lore make the same connection, although whether it is understood to be a sacred or malevolent connection depends upon cultural and individual perceptions.
People tend to fear or love black cats, frequently revealing their attitudes toward witchcraft. The major superstition regarding black cats is that they bring bad luck should they cross your path and people will cross the street to avoid them. This isn’t so ridiculous if one recalls that black cats were once commonly believed to be witches in disguise, out looking for fun and trouble. In Britain, however, black cats are lucky; white cats are identified with bad luck, as are many white animals, perhaps because of associations with ghosts and death.
Chickens
Because chickens were perceived as being twice born (once when the egg is laid, once when it hatches), they were regarded as sacred. Black is the color of night, fertility, and gestation and so black hens were considered the most sacred of all.
Many magic spells stipulate that feathers or eggs must come from a pure black hen. The very first egg laid by a black hen is considered extremely magically powerful and is coveted for love and fertility spells.
Black hens are identified with and sacred to the supreme witch goddess Hecate (see DIVINE WITCH: Hecate). This spiritual memory survives in the Mother Goose rhyme, “Heckity peckity, my black hen…” In some parts of Britain, witches were allegedly incapable of approaching black chicken feathers, and so on Halloween it was customary to kill a black hen. The hen was cooked but the feathers were artfully arranged: hung onto the door of the house, over the bed or onto children or horses. It sounds suspiciously like a surreptitious method of offering a sacrifice to Hecate.
In African-derived magic, black hen’s feathers are used for magical cleansings. (Cleansing spells remove negative energy, spiritual debris, curses and malevolent spells.) Burn the feathers to a very, very fine ash, and then dust them on the person to be cleansed.
Black hens counter malevolent spells and allegedly remove jinxes. In the United States,