A not so common archeological find is that of the mummified cat, although the correct term is 'dried cat'. These are often found concealed in walls but sometimes roofs as well. In some cases the cats have been positioned, indicating that they were already dead at the time of concealment. One sad case is of a kitten which had been pinned down and had its belly cut. There is also a case where a mummified puppy has been found. Sometimes mummified rats are found with the cats, suggesting a symbolic placing of the creatures, possibly to indicate the cat's function on a spiritual plane. Some writers have commented that the likelihood is that cats are placed in such situations to act as vermin scaring devices. This, however, is unlikely because the locations are often in impractical places such as the roof. When cats are found beneath floorboards there is always the possibility that they crawled there to die, but this does not rule out some kind of foundation sacrifice, which is another of the main suggestions.

This idea of foundation sacrifice seems relatively sensible but you still have to ask why? Is it in the honour of some god or goddess for which there is no obvious evidence? A preferable and more reasonable explanation is that it was hoped that some of the qualities attributed to the cat in life would continue in the afterlife. Cats are reputed to be able to see ghosts and spirits easier than humans can and it is possible that it was their job to catch vermin of a more spiritual kind, perhaps the witch's familiar. George Gifford, writing in 1593, complained of witch's familiars running around outside. If he'd had a cat concealed in his walls, a witch-bottle beneath his doorstep and some shoes up his chimney he'd have had less to worry about.

Cat Witches

There is a social drama implicit in the stories of the cat-witch. At Strasbourg a workman, plodding home after a hard day in the fields, was set upon by three fiend-like cats. He acquitted himself manfully with his axe, and beat them off: but come next morning, he was arrested for molesting three reputable ladies from the town. Quoting the cat experience as his alibi, he asked for the ladies to appear and dispute it, but they were indisposed �?this seemed a suspicious circumstance: so the judges ordered for them to be searched, and the marks of the axe were found on their bodies. In these stories the antithesis is between men and women. In Swabia a soldier used to drop in on his girlfriend whenever he could find time �?the garrison allowed him nights off sentry duty �?but early in the relationship she told him not to try doing this on a Friday. This weighed on his mind, and come one Friday night he set out quietly towards her house. As he entered the street, a white cat slipped out of the shadows and paced behind him. It refused to be driven off, and increasingly frustrated at this betrayal of his plan, the man drew his sword and slashed at it, cutting across a paw; then he carried on uninterrupted to the girl's house. He was told she was in bed, but he would not take no for an answer and ran up the stairs to see her. There she was, under tumbled bedclothes in which a spreading bloodstain could hardly be concealed. Tearing back the coverlet, he found the stump of an arm where his earlier blow had struck home (Howey 1931: 97�?9). The Cat-Witch excuse was often used for violence against women.

Bonfire Cats

Under suspicion of being witches, cats were tortured with all the ingenuity men could command. The ritual bonfires lit for the various calendar festivals between Lent and Midsummer were used for this. At Metz cats were enclosed in wicker cages over the flames, in Alsace they were thrown in, and in the Ardennes they were carefully strapped onto the ends of poles and held just above the flames. At Paris the midsummer bonfires consumed whole sacks and barrels of cats. These were the bonfires which Louis XIV was honoured to light in 1648. He wore a crown of roses, and was dressed as if for a dance (Frazer 1923: 38�?0). The men who kindled these bonfires were unable to burn the witches who weighed so heavily on their imaginations, but they could round up cats as substitutes, and they explained their pleasure in the screams of the dying animals by interpreting each one as a witch who had been captured during her time of metamorphosis. Even when the witch belief was gone, the motives for purgative cruelty remained. Still in Paris, but a century later, there was a day during which the apprentices and young men were free to go on the rampage, killing as many cats as they could. Many unspoken meanings lay behind this horrid custom, but among them was the opportunity given to the lads to get their own back on important local women by aiming blows at their pets (Darnton 1985).