The fireside sphinx. Agnes Repplier

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СКАЧАТЬ "Againe it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause that the Kinges Majestie's shippe, at his coming forthe of Denmarke, had a contrairie winde to the reste of the shippes then being in his companie; which thing was most straunge and true, as the Kinges Majestic acknowledgeth. For when the rest of the shippes had a fair and good winde, then was the winde contrairie, and altogether against his Majestie."

      Evidence of a most disastrous character was brought against the cat in countless other trials. The famous Scotch witch, Isobel Gowdie, "convict and brynt"—so saith the record—in 1662, confessed that it was a common habit of the sisterhood to change themselves into cats, and in that guise to prowl at night over the country-side, stealing into all the farmhouses that were not fenced against them by prayer and charms. She herself had a foolish preference for the form of a hare; and, as a consequence, had been twice hunted by hounds, narrowly escaping death. Joan Peterson was hanged at Wapping, ten years earlier, for visiting and plaguing her neighbours under the semblance of a black cat; and a sister witch met the same fate at Lynn, for sending an impish pussy to ​sit at night upon the bed of one Cicely Balyer with whom she had grievously quarrelled.

      This kind of visitation was not infrequent—nor altogether surprising when one considers the nocturnal habits of cats, and the accessibility of cottage chimneys—but the horror of it brought many an old wife to the scaffold. Janet Wishart and Alice Kyteler were both convicted of sending a "wantoune cat" to work evil upon such as had offended them; and a nameless English witch, hanged in King Jamie's reign, confessed that she wrought all her charms with the help of a dun-coloured cat, that came one night to her cottage when she was cowering over her fire, nursing angry thoughts against a farmer's wife. This beast dwelt with her for months, stealing forth night after night to obey her foul behests, until there was scarce a woman in the village who had not suffered from its malignity.

      Apparently there was no piece of mischief too great or too trivial for an energetic and evilly disposed cat. The mere presence of Isobel Grierson's pussy in broad daylight would turn sound ale sour; and the most damning evidence brought against John Fian, a Scottish schoolmaster, strangled as a warlock in 1591, was that he had been seen by neighbours in hot pursuit of a cat, leaping over hedges and ditches like one with wings, so furious was the chase. When questioned as to why he ​hunted the animal, he unwisely admitted—or so at least deposed several garrulous witnesses—that Satan had need of all the cats his servants could bring him, being unable without their aid to raise storms or to wreck ships—a curious limitation of diabolic power.

      The trial which of all others, however, established the Scotch cat's reputation for sorcery was that of Margaret Gilbert and Margaret Olson, two women of Caithness, who were accused of bewitching the household of a stone-mason named Montgomerie by means of a number of cats. No bolts nor bars could exclude these emissaries of evil, nor could they be killed like ordinary animals. When run through by a sword, or cleft in twain by a hatchet, they merely disappeared, to return again at some more convenient opportunity. Moreover, they had a habit of conversing together at night with human voices, but in an unknown tongue;—a habit which seems to have thrilled the unfortunate Montgomeries with terror, and which, it may well be admitted, was calculated to try the nerves. No wonder that a little maid servant fled from the house in mid-term, and would enter it no more, after she had heard these cats talking by the kitchen fire. No wonder that villagers came in time to look askance upon all pussies as possible imps of Belial;—a possibility which assumed definite shape and ​malevolence when the ever famous witch-finder, Matthew Hopkins, admitted that he himself had beheld at dusk an evil spirit in the shape of a "white kitlyn." 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 "kitlyn" 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 Grandcour, 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. German 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 fervour to be delivered from its spell. Jean Bodin, author of Demonomanie des Sorciers, tells us with sympathetic gravity a number of stories so curious ​and so startling that we envy the readers who were fortunate enough to believe them. It is from Bodin that we learn of the witch cats who in 1566 assembled in such numbers in the forests near Vernon that they terrorized the neighbourhood, and no man ventured to assail them. After a time they became so bold that they attacked a party of labourers, returning at nightfall from their work. The men, seeing themselves thus horribly beset, fought with desperation for their lives; and, though covered with wounds, managed to escape, having killed one of the cats, and injured a number of others. This battle proved the undoing of the witches, for the next morning a dozen women of Vernon were found bleeding and mutilated in their beds; and, being brought promptly to trial, made full confessions, denouncing half their neighbours in the country-side.

      Bodin is also responsible for the statement that the heretical Waldenses, when hard pushed by the royal troops, summoned to their aid a demon cat, under whose leadership and direction they again and again escaped unwhipt of justice. This is especially worth hearing, because it seems to be one of the few instances in which any practical assistance was lent by the Powers of Darkness. Nothing is more striking than the supreme impotence of sorcerers and sacrilegists, when summoned to ​answer for their ill-doing. With all the vast machinery of Hell to back them, they could neither outwit nor outstrip the clumsy pursuit of man. A rare exception to this rule was the case of a baker's wife in Köln, who cruelly bewitched her husband's little apprentice. When accused of the crime, she manifested the unconcern of one who had nothing to fear; and neither threats nor exhortations could move her to repentance. She was sentenced to the stake; but, to the end, defied the judge, laughed at the executioner, and mocked the priest with appalling blasphemies. The fagots were fired, the smoke enveloped her thickly, the priest lifted his voice in prayer—when, with a wild exultant screech, there leaped from out the flames a black cat, which disappeared in a trice amid the terrified throng. The witch had escaped; but one trembles to think what suspicion must have fallen for a time on all the black pussies of Köhn.

      Perhaps, however, it was impossible to enhance the guilt of an animal already credited with such frightful depths of malignity. The very word Grimalkin, or Greymalkin, which now we use so lightly, was the name of a fiend, and bore a fearful significance in the annals of witchcraft.

      "Now I go, now I fly,

       Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I,"

      sings Hecate in Middleton's fantastic play. A still ​deeper horror clings to "Rutterkin," for by that name was known one of the sinfullest of cats—a terrible cat, black, sinister, malevolent,

      "with eyne of burning coal,"

      who helped his most wicked mistress in the "sorrowful bewitchment" of the Countess of Rutland and her two young sons, and who did more to blast the fair fame of his race than any puss in Christendom.

      The record of the extraordinary trial in which Rutterkin figures so darkly is to be found in the "Churche Boke of Bottesford." Here is set forth with many curious details the story of the witch, Joan Flower, who conceived a venomous hatred of the Earl of Rutland, and of his "noble Countess,"—a woman so gracious, good, beautiful and kind, that she was reverenced alike by rich and poor, friends, servants and dependents. Joan, knowing full well that she could strike the mother most deeply through her son, stole a glove belonging to the heir, soaked it in scalding water, pricked it with pins, and rubbed it on the back of her "familiar," the black cat, Rutterkin. In consequence of this СКАЧАТЬ