40 THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



levolence when the ever famous witch -finder, Mat 

 thew Hopkins, admitted that he himself had beheld 

 at dusk an evil spirit in the shape of a &quot; white 

 kitlyn.&quot; This innocent looking object speedily 

 proved its diabolic nature by routing the pious 

 man s greyhound, which turned tail and fled before 

 the tiny creature ; while Hopkins, unmindful for 

 once of his serious duties, lost no time in following 

 his dog. It was certainly a &quot; kitlyn &quot; of pluck and 

 spirit that roamed the English lanes that pleasant 

 summer eve. 



Continental cats were as deeply incriminated as 

 were those of Great Britain. A witch of Grand- 

 cour, named Elizabeth Blanche, confessed at her 

 trial that she was in the habit of rubbing her body 

 with a black ointment which transformed her into a 

 cat, and enabled her to steal unnoticed through the 

 darkness, when summoned to devilish rites. Ger 

 man witches trooped to the Brocken on Walpurgis 

 night under the semblance of cats ; and many were 

 the witnesses who swore that they had tracked the 

 little footmarks for miles to the place of meeting. 

 El Gato Moro the Moor-Cat prowled in the 

 moonlight about the citadel of Toledo, and pious 

 Christians who beheld it prayed with exceeding fer 

 vour to be delivered from its spell. Jean Bodin, 

 author of Demonomanic dcs Sorcicrs, tells us with 

 sympathetic gravity a number of stories so curious 



