The Zoologist— October, 1807. 921 



Notes on the Folk-lore of Zoology. By Edward R. Alston, Esq. 

 (Continued from Zool. S. S. 884.) 



Wild Cat.— The " Mountain Cat" was the emblem or badge of the 

 Mclntoshes or Clan Chattan, and its ferocity is testified by their 

 motto, "Touch not the cat but the glove," that is, without the glove. 

 Ben Jonson introduces it as a beast of evil omen in his ' Masque of 

 Queens ' : — 



" The owl is abroad, the bat, and the toad, 

 And so is the cat-a-mountain." 



The domestic species, which we may include under this heading, in 

 defiance of strict nomenclature, has always been associated with the 

 black arts. A cat was a common form for a witch to assume ; still 

 oftener it was in this shape that her " familiar impes" appeared, as is 

 attested by the evidence at many of the infamous witch-trials which 

 disgraced the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These "impes" 

 were suckled by the witches, or were fed with their blood : thus in 

 Middleton's play of 'The Witch,' a spirit descends in the form of a 

 cat: — 



Voices above. — " There's one come down to fetch his dues 



A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood !" 



According to a German superstition you may obtain money from the 

 devil by tying a black cat in a bag, secured by ninety-nine knots, and 

 selling it as a hare to the fiend at a church-door at midnight; but as 

 soon as the bargain is struck, you must fly with all haste, for if you 

 reach not the shelter of a christian roof ere the fraud be discovered, 

 you are lost for ever. Hence, doubtless, the proverb about " letting 

 the cat out of the bag" {Simrock, ' Handbuch der Deutschen 

 Mythologies p. 488). 



Wolf.— In the northern myths the wolf was a distinguished person- 

 age. The sun and moon were constantly pursued by two wolves, Skoll 

 and Hati, and in the fatal days of the Ragnarok, the " twilight of the 

 gods," the fiendwolf Fenris will kill Odin himself and devour the sun, 

 but will be slain in its turn by Vidur. Two wolves, Geri and Freki, 

 are represented as lying at Odin's feet in Walhalla, receiving from him 

 his portion of the boar's flesh, which was the food of the gods {Simrock): 

 In mediaeval German fable the wolf bears a very bad character, at once 

 malicious, cowardly, and stupid ; as such he plays his part in the great 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. II. 3 E 



