=THE CAT 



The Witch Cat 



Innumerable legends cluster around the cat 

 during the picturesque centuries of superstition, 

 when men were poor in letters, but rich in vivid 

 imaginings; when they were densely ignorant, but 

 never dull. Even after the Dark Ages had grown 

 light, there was no lifting of the gloom which 

 enveloped Pussy's pathway, there was no visible 

 softening of her lot. The stories told of her imp- 

 ish wickedness have the same general character 

 throughout Europe. We meet them with modest 

 variations in France, Germany, Sweden, Den- 

 mark, England, Scotland and Wales. It was a 

 belated woodcutter of Brittany who saw with hor- 

 ror-stricken eyes thirteen cats dancing in sacri- 

 legious glee around a wayside crucifix. One he 

 killed with his axe, and the other twelve disappeared 

 in a trice. It was a charcoal-burner in the Black 

 Forest who, hearing strange noises near his kiln at 

 night, arose from bed, and stepped into the clear- 

 ing. Before him, motionless in the moonlight, sat 

 three cats. He stooped to pick up a stone, and 

 the relic of Saint Gildas he carried in his bosom 

 fell from its snapt string upon the ground. Im- 

 mediately his arm hung helpless, and he could not 

 touch the stone. Then one of the cats said to its 

 companions : " For the sake of his wife, who is 



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