[Illustration: CHAPTER IX.]
_Of Puss in Proverbs, in the Dark Ages, and in the Company of Wicked Old
Women._
These are some of the best known Proverbs about Cats:--
“Care will kill a Cat,” one says, and yet Cats are said to have nine
lives. Let us hope that poor Pussy will never be put to a worse death.
“A muffled Cat is no good mouser.”
“That Cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap.”
“You can have no more of a Cat than her skin.” This proverb seems to refer
to the unfitness of her flesh for food. Formerly the fur of the Cat was
used in trimming coats and cloaks. The Cat-gut used for rackets, and for
the fine strings of violins, is made from the dried intestines of the Cat,
the larger strings being from the intestines of sheep and lambs.
“Fain would the Cat fish eat, but she is loth to wet her feet.”
“The Cat sees not the mouse ever.”
“When the Cat winketh, little wots the mouse what the Cat thinketh.”
“Though the Cat winks a while, yet sure she is not blind.”
“Well might the Cat wink when both her eyes were out?”
“How can the Cat help it, if the maid be a fool?” Which means how can it
help breaking or stealing that which is left in its way?
“That that comes of a Cat will catch mice.”
“A Cat may look at a king.”
“An old Cat laps as much as a young kitten.”
“When the Cat is away, the mice will play.”
“When candles are out, all Cats are grey.” Otherwise, “Joan is as good as
my Lady in the dark.”
“The Cat knows whose lips she licks.”
“Cry you mercy, killed my Cat.” This is spoken to those who play one a
trick, and then try to escape punishment by begging pardon.
“By biting and scratching, Cats and Dogs come together.”
“I’ll keep no more Cats than will catch mice;” or no more in family than
will earn their living.
“Who shall hang the bell about the Cat’s neck.” The mice at a
consultation, how to secure themselves from the Cat, resolved upon hanging
a bell about her neck, to give warning when she approached; but when this
was resolved on, they were as far off as ever, for who was to do it? John
Skelton says:--
“But they are lothe to mel,
And lothe to hang the bel
About the Catte’s neck,
Fro dred to have a checke”
“A Cat has nine lives, and a woman has nine Cats’ lives.”
“Cats eat what hussies spare.”
“Cats hide their claws.”
“The wandering Cat gets many a rap.”
“The Cat is hungry when a crust contents her.”
“He lives under the sign of the _Cat’s foot_;” that is to say, he is
hen-pecked--his wife scratches him.
Here are some French proverbs:--
“Chat échaudé craint l’eau froide.” (A burnt child dreads the fire.)
“Ne réveillons pas les Chats qui dort.” (Let sleeping dogs alone.)
“La nuit tous Chats sont gris.”
Molière says:--
“Vous êtes-vous mis dans la tête que Léonard de Pourceaugnac soit un homme
à acheter Chat en poche.” (To buy a pig in a poke.)
“Ce n’est pas à moi que l’on vendra un Chat pour un lièvre.” (Don’t think
you can catch an old bird with chaff.)
“Elle est friande comme une chatte.” (She’s as dainty as a Cat.)
“Payer en Chats et en rats.” (To pay in driblets.)
“Appeler un Chat un Chat.” (Call a spade a spade.)
“Avoir un Chat dans la gorge.” (Something sticking in the throat.)
Shakespeare says:--
“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’
Like the poor Cat i’the adage.”
Again:--
“Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The Cat will mew, and Dog will have his day.”
The wisdom of our forefathers teaches us, that if a Cat be carried in a
bag from its old home to a new house, let the distance be several miles,
it will be certain to return again; but if it be carried backward into the
new house this will not be the case.
A Cat’s eyes wax and wane as the moon waxes and wanes, and the course of
the sun is followed by the apples of its eyes.
The brain of a Cat may be used as a love spell if taken in small doses.
If a man swallow two or three Cat’s hairs, it will cause him to faint. As
a cure for epilepsy, take three drops of blood from under a Cat’s tail in
water.
The horse ridden by a man who has got any Cat’s hair on his clothing will
perspire violently, and soon become exhausted. If the wind blows over a
Cat riding in a vehicle, upon the horse drawing it, it will weary the
horse very much.
To preserve your eyesight, burn the head of a black Cat to ashes, and
have a little of the dust blown into your eyes three times a day.
To cure a whitlow, put the finger affected a quarter of an hour every day
into a Cat’s ear.
The fat of the wild Cat (Axungia Cati Sylvestris) is good for curing
epilepsy and lameness. The skin of the wild Cat worn as coverings, will
give strength to the limbs.
Now about dreams:--
If any one dreams that he hath encountered a Cat, or killed one, he will
commit a thief to prison and prosecute him to the death, for the Cat
signifies a common thief. If he dreams that he eats Cat’s flesh, he will
have the goods of the thief that robbed him; if he dreams that he hath the
skin, then he will have all the thief’s goods. If any one dreams he fought
with a Cat that scratched him sorely, that denotes some sickness or
affliction. If any shall dream that a woman became the mother of a Cat
instead of a well shaped baby, it is a bad hieroglyphic, and betokens no
good to the dreamer.
Stevens states, that in some counties of England, it used to be thought a
good bit of fun to close up a Cat in a cask with a quantity of soot, and
suspend the cask on a line; then he who could knock out the bottom of the
cask as he ran under it, and was nimble enough to escape its falling
contents, was thought to be very clever. After the first part had been
performed, the Cat was hunted to death, which finished this diverting
pastime. They were full of their fun, once upon a time, in merrie England.
In an old-fashioned treatise upon Rat-catching, I find mentioned a means
of alluring “of very material efficacy, which is, the use of oil of
Rhodium, which, like the marumlyriacum, in the case of Cats, has a very
extraordinary fascinating power on these animals.”
Among the sympathetic secrets in occult philosophy, published in the
_Conjurors’ Magazine_, in 1791, I find a recipe “to draw Cats together,
and fascinate them,” which is as follows:--
“In the new moon, gather the herb Nepe, and dry it in the heat of the sun,
when it is temperately hot: gather vervain in the hour ☿, and only expose
it to the air while ☉ is under the earth. Hang these together in a net, in
a convenient place, and when one of them has scented it, her cry will soon
call those about her that are within hearing; and they will rant and run
about, leaping and capering to get at the net, which must be hung or
placed so that they cannot easily accomplish it, for they will certainly
tear it to pieces. Near Bristol there is a field that goes by the
appellation of the ‘Field of Cats,’ from a large number of these animals
being drawn together there by this contrivance.”
One of the frauds of witchcraft was the witch pretending to transform
herself into a Cat, and this led to the Cat being tormented by the
ignorant vulgar.
In 1618, Margaret and Philip Flower were executed at Lincoln; their mother
was also accused, dying in goal before (probably of fright, added to old
age and infirmity). It was asserted that they had procured the death of
the Lord Henry Mosse, eldest son of the Earl of Rutland, by procuring his
right-hand glove, which, after being rubbed on the back of their imp,
named “Rutterkin,” and which lived with them in the form of a Cat, was
plunged into boiling water, pricked with a knife, and buried in a
dung-hill, so that, as that rotted, the liver of the young man might rot
also, which was affirmed to have come to pass.
Those were dreadful times for the ill-looking old ladies, and the more so
if they were unfortunate enough to have an affection for the feline
race.
“A wrinkled hag, of wicked fame,
Beside a little smoky flame,
Sat hovering, pinched with age and frost,
Her shrivelled hands with veins embossed.
Upon her knees her weight sustains,
While palsy shook her crazy brains;
She mumbles forth her backward prayer--
An untamed scold of fourscore year.
About her swarmed a numerous brood
Of Cats, who, lank with hunger, mewed;
Teased with their cries, her choler grew,
And thus she sputtered--‘Hence, ye crew!
Fool that I was to entertain
Such imps, such fiends--a hellish train;
Had ye been never housed and nursed,
I for a witch had n’er been cursed;
To you I owe that crowd of boys
Worry me with eternal noise;--
Straws laid across, my pace retard;
The horse-shoes nailed (each threshold’s guard);
The stunted broom the wenches hide,
For fear that I should up and ride.’”
The belief in witchcraft is a very ancient and deep-rooted one. From the
earliest times, we can trace records of supposed acts of witchcraft, and
their punishment. Pope Innocent VIII., in 1484, issued a bull, empowering
the Inquisition to search for witches and burn them. From the time of this
superstitious act, the executions for witchcraft increased. The pope had
given sanction to the belief in this demoniacal power, and had asserted
their possession of it. In 1485, forty-one poor women were burnt as
witches in Germany; an inquisitor in Piedmont burnt a hundred more, and
was proceeding so fast with others daily, that the people rose _en masse_,
and chased him out of the country. About the same time, five hundred
witches were executed at Geneva, in the course of three months.
Among the many who counterfeited possession by the devil, for the purpose
of attracting pity or obtaining money, were Agnes Bridges and Rachel
Pinder, who had counterfeited to be possessed by the devil, and vomited
pins and rags; but were detected, and stood before the preacher at St.
Paul’s Cross, and acknowledged their hypocritical counterfeiting: this
happened in 1574.
In fifteen years, from 1580 to 1595, Remigius burnt nine hundred reputed
witches in Lorraine. In Germany, they tortured and burnt them daily, until
many unfortunates destroyed themselves for fear of a death by torment, and
others fled the country.
Ludovicus Paramo states, that the Inquisition, within the space of 150
years, had burnt thirty thousand of these reputed witches.
The superstition continued on the increase, and reached its culmination in
the Puritanic time of the Commonwealth, when persons more cunning and
wicked than the rest, gained a subsistence by discovering witches (by
pretended marks and trials they used), and denouncing them to death. The
chief of these persons was MATHEW HOPKINS, _Witch Finder General_, as he
termed himself. He was a native of Manningtree, in Essex, and he devoted
his pretended powers so zealously in the service of his country, that in
1644, sixteen witches, discovered by him, were burnt at Yarmouth; fifteen
were condemned at Chelmsford, and hanged in that town and at Manningtree.
Many more at Bury St. Edmunds, in 1645 and 1646, amounting to nearly forty
in all at the several places of execution, and as many more in the country
as made up threescore.
In this work he was aided by one John Stern, and a woman, who with the
rest, pretended to have secret means of testing witchcraft; nor was their
zeal unrewarded by the weak and superstitious parliament. Mr. Hopkins, in
a book published in 1647, owns that he had twenty shillings for each town
he visited to discover witches, and owns that he punished many: testing
them by a water ordeal, to see if they would sink or swim. He says that
he swam many, and watched them for four nights together, keeping them
standing or walking till their feet were blistered; “the reason” as he
says, “was to prevent their couching down; for indeed, when they be
suffered to couch, immediately come their familiars in the room, and
scareth the watchers, and heartneth (encourageth) the witch.”
This swimming experiment, which was deemed a full proof of guilt if any
one subjected to it did not sink, but floated on the surface of the water,
was one of the ordeals especially recommended by our king, James I., who,
in a work upon the subject, among other things, assigned this somewhat
ridiculous reason for its pretended infallibility:--“That as such persons
had renounced their baptism by water, so the water refuses to receive
them.” Consequently, those who were accused of diabolical practices, were
tied neck and heels together, and tossed into a pond; if they floated or
swam they were guilty, and therefore taken out and hanged or burnt; if
they were innocent, they were drowned. Of this method of trial by water
ordeal, Scot observes: “that a woman above the age of fifty years, and
being bound both hand and foot, her clothes being upon her, and being
laid softly upon the water, sinketh not a long time, some say not at all.”
And Dr. Hutchinson confirms this, by saying, not one in ten even sink in
that position of their bodies. Its utter fallacy was shown when the witch
finders themselves were thus tested; and the last quoted writer says, that
if the books written against witchcraft were tested by the same ordeal,
they would in no degree come off more safely.
One of the most cruel cases was that of Mr. Lowes, a clergyman, who had
reached the patriarchal age of eighty. He was one of those unfortunate
ministers of the Gospel whose livings were sequestered by the parliament,
and who was suspected as malignant because he preserved his loyalty and
the homilies of the Church. It would have been well for him had this been
the only suspicion; but he was accused of witchcraft; and it was asserted
that he had sunk ships at sea by the power he possessed, and witnesses
were found who swore to seeing him do it. He was seized and _tested_. They
watched him, and kept him awake at night, and ran him backwards and
forwards about the room until he was out of breath; then they rested him a
little, and then ran him again. And thus they did for several days and
nights together, until he was weary of his life, and was scarce sensible
of what he said or did. They swam him twice or thrice, although that was
no true rule to try him by, for they sent in unsuspected people at the
same time, and they swam as well as he; yet was the unfortunate old
clergyman condemned to death and executed.
In the book written some years after this, by Mr. Gaul, he mentions their
mode of discovering witches, which was principally by marks or signs upon
their bodies, which were in reality but moles, scorbutic spots, or warts,
which frequently grow large and pendulous in old age, and were absurdly
declared to be teats to suckle imps. Thus of one, Joane Willimot, in 1619,
it was sworn that she had two imps, one in the form of a kitten, and
another in that of a mole, “and they leapt on her shoulder, and the kitten
sucked under her right ear, on her neck, and the mole on the left side, in
the like place;” and at another time a spirit was seen “sucking her under
the left ear, in the likeness of a little white dogge.” (See _The
Wonderful Discovery of the Witchcrafts of Margare and Philip Flower_,
1619).
Another test was to place the suspected witch in the middle of a room,
upon a stool or table, cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture, and
if she were refractory, she was tied too by cords, and kept without meat
or sleep for a space of four-and-twenty hours; all this time she was
strictly watched, because it was believed that in the course of that time
her imp would come to suck her, for whom some hole or ingress was
provided. The watchers swept the room frequently, so that nothing might
escape them; and should a fly or spider be found that had the activity to
elude them, they were assured these were the imps. In 1645 one was hanged
at Cambridge, who kept a tame frog which was sworn to be her imp; and one
at Gloucester, in 1649, who was convicted for having suckled a sow in the
form of a little black creature. In “a Tryal of Witches, at Bury St.
Edmunds, 1664,” a witness deposed to having caught one of these imps in a
blanket, waiting for her child, who slept in it and was bewitched; that it
was in the form of a toad, and was caught and thrown into the fire, where
“it made a great and horrible noise, and after a space there was a
flashing in the fire like gunpowder, making a noise like the discharge of
a pistol, and thereupon the toad was no more seen nor heard.” All of which
was the simple natural result of this cruel proceeding, but which was
received by judge and jury, at that time, of the poor toad being an imp!
Hutchinson, in his essay on witchcraft, says:--“It was very requisite that
these witch-finders should take care to go to no towns but where they
might do what they would without being controlled by sticklers; but if the
times had not been as they were, they would have found but few towns where
they might be suffered to use the trial of the stool, which was as bad as
most tortures. Do but imagine a poor old creature, under all the weakness
and infirmities of old age, set like a fool in the middle of a room, with
a rabble of ten towns about her home; then her legs tied across, that all
the weight of her body might rest upon her seat. By that means, after some
hours, the circulation of the blood would be stopped, and her sitting
would be as painful as the wooden horse. Then must she continue in pain
four-and-twenty hours, without either sleep or meat; and since this was
their ungodly way of trial, what wonder was it if, when they were weary of
their lives, they confessed many tales that would please them, and many
times they knew not what.”
Hopkins’ favourite and ultimate method of proof was by swimming, as
before narrated. They tied together the thumbs and toes of the suspected
person, about whose waist was fastened a cord, the ends of which were held
on the banks of the river by two men, whose power it was to strain or
slacken it. If they floated, they were witches. After a considerable
course of wicked accusation on the part of Hopkins and his accomplices,
testing all by these modes of trial, and ending in the cruel deaths of
many wretched old persons, a reaction against him took place, probably at
the instigation of some whose friends had been condemned innocently, or of
those who were too wise to believe in his tests, and disgusted with his
cold wickedness. His own famous and conclusive evidence--the experiment of
swimming--was tried _upon himself_; and this wretch, who had sacrificed so
many, by the same test, was found to be _guilty_, too. He was deservedly
condemned, and suffered death himself as a wizard.
Dr. Harsenet, Archbishop of York, in his _Declaration of Popish
Impostures_, says, “Out of those is shap’d us the true idea of a witch, an
old weather-beaten crone, having her chin and knees meeting for age,
walking like a bow leaning on a staff, hollow ey’d, untooth’d, furrow’d on
her face, having her lips trembling with the palsy, going mumbling in
the streets--one that hath forgotten her pater-noster, and yet hath a
shrewd tongue to call a drab a drab!--if she hath learned of an old wife
in a chimney end, pax, max, fax, for a spell, or can say Sir John
Grantham’s curse for a nuller’s eels--‘All ye that have stolen the
miller’s eels, Laudate Dominum de Cœlis, and they that have consented
thereto, Benedicamus Domino,’ why then, beware, look about you, my
neighbours. If any of you have a sheep sick of the giddies, or a hog of
the mumps, or a horse of the staggers, or a knavish boy of the school, or
an idle girl of the wheel, or a young drab of the sullens, and hath not
fat enough for her porridge, or butter enough for her bread, and she hath
a little help of the epilepsy or cramp to teach her to roll her eyes, wry
her mouth, gnash her teeth, startle with her body, hold her arms and hands
stiff, etc. And then, when an old Mother Nobs hath by chance called her
‘idle young housewife,’ or bid the devil scratch her, then no doubt but
Mother Nobs is the witch, and the young girl is owl-blasted, etc. They
that have their brains baited, and their fancies distempered, with the
imaginations and apprehensions of witches, conjurors, and fairies, and all
that lymphatical chimera, I find to be marshalled in one of these five
ranks:--Children, fools, women, cowards, sick or black melancholic
discomposed wits.”
Many hundreds of poor old women, and many a Cat, were sacrificed to the
zealous Master Hopkins, for Cats and Kittens were frequently said to be
imps, who had taken that form. However, he was not the only scoundrel who
made witch-finding a trade.
In Syke’s _Local Recorder_, mention is made of a Scotchman, who pretended
great powers of discovering witchcraft, and was engaged by the townsmen of
Newcastle to practise there; and one man and fifteen women were hanged by
him. But he ultimately shared, as Hopkins did, the cruel fate he had
awarded to so many others. “When the witch-finder had done in Newcastle,
and received his wages, he went into Northumberland to try women there,
and got three pounds a-piece; but Henry Doyle, Esq., laid hold on him, and
required bond of him to answer at the Sessions. He escaped into Scotland,
where he was made prisoner, indicted, arraigned, and condemned for
such-like villany exercised in Scotland, and confessed at the gallows that
he had been the death of above two hundred and twenty women in England and
Scotland.”
Here is an account of the death of a famous witch’s famous Cat:--
“Ye rats, in triumph elevate your ears!
Exult, ye mice! for Fate’s abhorred shears
Of Dick’s nine lives have slit the Cat-guts nine;
Henceforth he mews ’midst choirs of Cats divine!”
So sings Mr. Huddesford, in a “Monody on the death of Dick, an Academical
Cat,” with this motto:--
“Mi-Cat inter omnes.”
_Hor. Carm._, Lib. i., Ode 12.
He brings his Cat, Dick, from the Flood, and consequently through
Rutterkin, a Cat who was “cater-cousin to the
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of
Grimalkin, and first Cat in the Caterie of an old woman, who was tried for
bewitching a daughter of the Countess of Rutland, in the beginning of the
sixteenth century.” The monodist connects him with Cats of great renown in
the annals of witchcraft; a science whereto they have been allied as
closely as poor old women, one of whom, it appears, on the authority of an
old pamphlet, entitled “_Mewes from Scotland_,” etc., printed in the year
1591, “confessed that she took a Cat and christened it, etc., and that
in the night following, the said Cat was conveyed into the middest of the
sea by all these witches sayling in their riddles, or cives, so left the
said Cat right before the towne of Leith, in Scotland. This done, there
did arise such a tempest at sea, as a greater hath not been seen since.
Againe it is confessed that the said christened Cat was the cause of the
Kinge’s majestie’s shippe, at his coming forthe of Denmark, had a
contrarie winde to the rest of the shippes then being in his companie,
which thing was most straunge and true, as the Kinge’s Majestie
acknowledgeth, for when the rest of the shippes had a fair and good winde,
then was the winde contrarie, and altogether against his Majestie,” etc.
All sorts of Cats, according to Huddesford, lamented the death of his
favourite, whom he calls “premier Cat upon the catalogue,” and who,
preferring sprats to all other fish:--
“Had swallow’d down a score, without remorse,
And three fat mice slew for a second course;
But, while the third his grinders dyed with gore,
Sudden those grinders clos’d--to grind no more!
And, dire to tell! commission’d by old Nick,
A catalepsy made an end of Dick.
Calumnious Cats, who circulate _faux pas_,
And reputations maul with murderous claws;
Shrill Cats, whom fierce domestic brawls delight,
Cross Cats, who nothing want but teeth to bite;
Starch Cats of puritanic aspect sad,
And learned Cats, who talk their husbands mad;
Confounded Cats, who cough, and croak, and cry,
And maudlin Cats who drink eternally;
Fastidious Cats, who pine for costly cates,
And jealous Cats who catechise their mates;
Cat prudes who, when they’re ask’d the question, squall,
And ne’er give answer categorical;
Uncleanly Cats, who never pare their nails,
Cat-gossips, full of Canterbury tales;
Cat-grandams, vex’d with asthmas and catarrhs,
And superstitious Cats, who curse their stars;
Cats of each class, craft, calling, and degree,
Mourn Dick’s calamitous catastrophe!
Yet while I chant the cause of Richard’s end,
Ye sympathising Cats, your tears suspend!
Then shed enough to float a dozen whales,
And use for pocket handkerchiefs your tails!
Ah! though thy bust adorn no sculptur’d shrine,
No vase thy relics rare to fame consign;
No rev’rend characters thy rank express,
Nor hail thee, Dick, ‘D.D. nor F.R.S.’
Though no funereal cypress shade thy tomb,
For thee the wreaths of Paradise shall bloom;
There, while Grimalkin’s mew her Richard greets,
A thousand Cats shall purr on purple seats.
E’en now I see, descending from his throne,
Thy venerable Cat, O Whittington!
The kindred excellence of Richard hail,
And wave with joy his gratulating tail!
There shall the worthies of the whiskered race
Elysian mice o’er floors of sapphire chase,
Midst beds of aromatic marum stray,
Or raptur’d rove beside the milky way.
Kittens, than eastern houris fairer seen,
Whose bright eyes glisten with immortal green,
Shall smooth for tabby swains their yielding fur,
And, to their amorous mews, assenting purr;--
There, like Alcmena’s, shall Grimalkin’s son
In bliss repose,--his mousing labours done,
Fate, envy, curs, time, tide, and traps defy,
And caterwaul to all eternity.”
To conclude this Chapter, an incident which took place only a few days
ago, in Essex, at a village within forty miles of London, and which came
under the personal knowledge of the writer, may be adduced, to show that,
however witchcraft may have been laughed away--and laughter has been more
effectual to rid the world of it than rope or stake--there are still to be
found individuals who believe in the evil powers of hook-nosed crones,
black Cats, and broom-sticks.
In a squalid hut lived a miserable dame, whose only claims to a demoniacal
connection were her excessive age and her sombre Cat. Whether the
neighbours thought the Cat was more of a witch than the woman, or whether
they had a wholesome dread of the punishment inflicted upon murderers,
it was upon the _animal_ the bewitched ones determined to wreak their
vengeance, and then it was that the true satanic nature of poor Puss
appeared. Traps were set to catch her, but she would not be caught; ropes
were purchased to hang her, but she would not bow her head to the noose;
and, finally, a blunderbuss was loaded to shoot her--loaded to the very
muzzle. By conjurations and enchantments, when that gun was fired, it
knocked the holder backwards, and never injured the black Cat. Another man
tried, with the same result, and yet another. It was evident the gun was
bewitched, so Pussy’s murder was given up for the time, and, with the
exception of the tip of her tail, lost in one of the traps, passed the
remainder of her life happy and unmutilated.