Folklore, Urban Legends, Myths, etc.

Cats Across Time In The World

It's not just the internet that's obsessed with cats. Since time immemorial, civilizations across the world have been devising myths about these curious creatures, ranging from superstitions about their supposed luckiness to stories of them playing fiddles, hanging out in cradles, or sailing the sea with owls in pea-green boats. Cats pop up in many religions as well, as both angelic and devilish figures. Whether the tales are true or not (they're not), here are some of the more curious beliefs different cultures have held about felines throughout history.

For centuries, folks in England believed that a cat is liable to climb into an infant's crib and "suck" the child's breath until it suffocates and dies. (In some versions of the tale, the cat is jealous because the newborn infant has suddenly deprived it of attention; other versions say it's not jealousy but the scent of milk on the baby's lips that inspires them.) In 1791, a jury at a coroner's inquest in Plymouth, England, found a cat guilty of infanticide in this way. This has been a persistent myth that followed emigrants to the New World; in 1929, the Nebraska State Journal printed an alleged report from a doctor who said he'd witnessed a housecat "lying on the baby's breast, a paw on either side of the babe's mouth, the cat's lips pressing those of the child and the infant's face as pale as that of a corpse, its lips with the blueness of death." 

Iceland, for all of its twee elven aesthetic and excellent quality of living, has some pretty savage Christmas stories. It seems that Íslendingar  grow up in fear of the ferocious Jólakötturinn, the Yule Cat, who prowls the frozen countryside around Christmastime, looking for humans to eat. But this giant, bloodthirsty cat-monster isn't looking to make naughty children into his meal, as you might expect. He's got an eye for fashion and is looking for people—kids, adults, whatever—who aren't wearing fine new clothes for Christmas Eve. (Farmers tell this tale to their workers as an incentive to finish processing wool before autumn comes, so everyone can get their new clothes made before the slob-eating Christmas Cat shows up.) This very weird fable sounds like something from the Viking Age, but it isn't really that old—it first appeared in print in the 19th century and wasn't popularized (in poem form, in true Icelandic style) until the early 20th.

In the Middle Ages, cats were commonly thought of as sinister beasts with basically the same powers as witches and warlocks, obviously in cahoots with Satan. A cat's bite was poisonous, as was its flesh, and if you breathed its breath, you'd be infected with consumption (also known as tuberculosis). They could also make your beer go sour if they felt like it.  As such, when bubonic plague swept the European continent in the 14th century, killing up to 60% of the population in some regions, it was naturally assumed that the Devil was responsible, and his handiwork was attributed directly to his feline minions. Tremendous numbers of cats—especially black ones—were destroyed during this wave of the plague, and sometimes their owners along with them. (To be fair, snakes were also blamed and destroyed as well.) This was ill-advised, of course, because the real distributor of the plague was the Oriental flea , which lives on rats, and with dramatically fewr cats (and snakes) to keep their numbers in check, the rat (although some say it was a gerbil) population in Europe soared ... as did the plague.

The Japanese believe that cats are lucky, but there are a lot of qualifiers. The maneki-neko ("beckoning cat") is an iconic Japanese talisman that, it's believed, brings good fortune to its owner, usually in the form of cash. One legend explains that a Japanese cat once waved a paw to beckon a lord into a house, which saved him from being struck by lightning a moment later, and so a cat who beckons with her paw is considered a lucky gesture. Tortoiseshell cats are also considered lucky in Japan, especially the rare male ones.

A Buddhist belief says a cat with a dark coat brings promises of gold, while a light-colored cat brings silver. In Russia, Russian Blue cats are considered lucky. Many cultures think that a polydactyl cat (one with extra toes) is a good-luck charm, and it's said that early sailors who sojourned to America routinely brought many-toed cats with them to ensure safe travels, which is why there's still an influx of polydactyl cats in New England today. Finally, in China, the older and gnarlier the cat gets, the luckier it's said to become.