Myths and Legends About Cats

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Cats have been the center of multiple myths and legends expanding the globe. Many cultures have worshiped them, even as far as considering them to be gods; where as other cultures consider them evil. In modern times cats are once again revered though not as extreme as the Ancient Egyptians. Cats have been domesticated for over five thousand years, and in those years have played a massive role in shaping cultural history for many civilizations.

Rodents became a major problem for the early Egyptians when they began storing grain (ThinkQuest). Cats were first used by the Egyptians to hunt down these pests but later were loved and worshipped as gods by the civilization. The Egyptians admired the cat’s ability to hunt and called them “miw,” which was the household name for cats. In the event of a cat’s death, the owner would go into mourning. The cat’s death was treated as that of a person’s. The owner would have the cat embalmed and put into a wooden casket; it was then taken to the Great Temple of Bastet, the cat god, to be ceremoniously buried (ThinkQuest). Cats were held to such a high respect that a death penalty was imposed on anyone who purposely killed one (CatsInfo.com).

Cats have been associated with witchcraft for many centuries (Deguara). The stereotype often associated with witches in our culture is, “an old woman, possible with green or grey skin, wearing a pointed hat, clad completely in black. She possesses a flying broomstick and a black cat” (Deguara). In medieval times the black cat was given to a witch as a “familiar,” an animal helper from the devil, to help her with her magic. Though naming and even talking to a cat is common in modern society, in medieval times it was considered a practice of witchcraft (Deguara). Cats were often used as sacrifices in religious rituals and were hated and feared so much that they were hanged, tortured, burned, and even drowned by Christians due to the belief that they were “scorned as Satan’s tools” (ThinkQuest). If the owner of a cat was convicted of witchcraft, the owner and the cat were often executed together (eSSORTMENT). Cats were blamed for many sins such as encouraging people to do wrong (eSSORTMENT). As the persecution of cats in Europe continued, the cat population began to dramatically decrease giving the rodent population a chance to take over (ThinkQuest). Disease overtook the rich and poor from the bacteria that covered fleas. Once the usefulness of cats was realized, cats became a more and more common household pet and the population once again thrived (ThinkQuest).