BBC History - UK (2022-01)

DR

EA

M

ST

IM

E/

PU

BL

IC

D

OM

AI

N

When were cats first associated with witchcraft?

Aloof, beautiful and with vermin-

killing superpowers, cats have long been

seen as supernatural beings. In ancient

Egypt, they were sacred to the goddess

Bastet. And several Greek goddesses,

including Hekate and Artemis, were

associated with cats.

Like many other symbols from pagan

religions – sacred groves of trees, holy

springs and standing stones, for example

• cats provided priests with a conun-
  drum when Christianity was establish-
  ing itself in early medieval Europe. Did
  their special status in some religions
  make them offensive to Christians?
  The Bible provided no guidance. All
  the available evidence suggested that
  ancient Judaism tolerated cats, and that
  Christians should, too. However, during
  13th-century persecutions of “heretics”
  such as the Cathars and Waldensians,
  stories began to circulate that the devil
  appeared in cat form and was wor-
  shipped by these supposedly anti-
  Christian groups. Satan was portrayed

DID YOU KNOW...?

When bunnies beat Boney

Napoleon Bonaparte was once

forced into retreat by rabbits. In

1807, the French emperor decided

to celebrate the signing of the

Treaties of Tilsit with a rabbit hunt.

His men gathered together bunnies

in their hundreds (if not thousands,

according to some accounts).

Rather than run away,

though, the creatures

bounded towards

Napoleon and his

guests, quickly

surrounding them.

Napoleon had to

ʚGGVQJKUECTTKCIG

Royal dentistry

Scottish king James IV paid people

to let him take out their teeth.

Fascinated by surgery and dentist-

ry, in 1511 he bought a pair of

pincers for extracting teeth.

The royal accounts state that

14 shillings were paid “to Kynnard

the barbour for twa teith drawn

furth of his hed by the king”. James

also founded the Royal College of

Surgeons of Edinburgh.

The baby Hitler hoax

In 1933, several American newspa-

pers published the same photo of a

scowling baby, purportedly showing

Adolf Hitler at the age of one. This

came as a surprise to Mrs Harriet

Downs of Ohio, who recognised the

infant as John May Warren, her son

from a previous marriage, retouched

to make him look more sinister (see

specialising in history

as a black, furry animal with blazing

eyes that, to some at least, looked feline.

True, the devil was also imagined as

a lion, dog or goat. But when the hunt for

anti-Christian heretics was extended to

the pursuit of anti-Christian witches,

the association with cats became more

prominent. Those suspected of witch-

craft were often housewives or widows

with vermin-catching pets, and their

cats were persecuted, too. In 16th and

17th-century Britain, North America

and parts of Europe, cats were thought

to be “familiar spirits” to witches: little

furry devils who helped these spell-

casters do harm.

By the start of the 17th century,

stories of witches’ cats were widespread

• they even appeared onstage in
  Macbeth (1606) – and the link between
  cats and witches was firmly established.

Marion Gibson, historian specialising

in witchcraft, and author of Witchcraft:

The Basics (Routledge, 2018)

IL

LU

ST

RA

TI

O

N^

BY

@

G

LE

N

M

CI

LL

U

ST

R

AT

IO

N

An 1807 rabbit hunt ended in

ignominy for Napoleon