Nyx in the House of Night

hepatitis.
I know. This all sounds gross beyond belief, but it’s not that different from what’s still going on in Asia. One reason that tigers are currently endangered is that poachers are killing them in order to sell their body parts for potions that are supposed to do everything from strengthening bones to curing arthritis to working as an aphrodisiac.
    What finally put an end to the persecution of cats in the West—and it took centuries—was the realization that cats were essential in stopping the waves of bubonic plague that were devastating Europe. It wasn’t understood then that rats and mice carried fleas, which spread the plague. Gradually, though, people began to notice that there weren’t as many deaths in households with cats, and they finally made the rat-flea-disease connection. After that, cats were considered invaluable in the fight against the plague. Even the church had to acknowledge this and finally put an end to burning them.
    Yet even throughout these times when cats were so widely feared, beliefs in cats as beneficent creatures with mystical powers that allowed them to predict the future or bring good luck remained. Throughout the British Isles, a cat sneezing or washing itself behind its ears with a wet forepaw was a sign of rain; a cat sitting with its back to the fire, a sign of coming frost. It was also said that a black cat would bring a maiden her lover, and that a cat sneezing on a wedding day was a good omen for the bride. Traces of beliefs in magical “helper” cats can still be found in the European fairy tales. Check out Charles Perrault’s “Puss in Boots” or Madame d’Aulnoy’s “Queen Cat” (also known as “White Cat”) in which courtly, elegant cats are not only lucky but save the people they love from misfortune. In the South of France, people believed in Matagot, or “magician” cats that would bring prosperity into a house where they were loved and wellcared for (though according to one French fairy tale, “The Black Cat,” all cats are magicians). Some stories claim that the Matagot were enemies of the demonic fairy cats, the Marcaou, but more typical are good-luck stories, like the popular tale of “Dick Whittington and His Cat.”
    MAGICAL CATS IN OTHER CULTURES
“Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes?”
—Theophile Gautier
    It wasn’t only the medieval Europeans who believed that cats were magical. In Islamic lore, the djinn were supernatural creatures who could take the form of animals, and frequently appeared as—or lived inside of—cats. Having free will, djinn could be good or bad. Sometimes they brought their humans wealth and good fortune; other times, they tormented them. Humans seemed to gain a djinn’s help either by making offerings to them or enslaving them. (The “genie” in the story of Aladdin’s Lamp is an example of a djinn.) However, treating a djinn badly could result in the djinn taking revenge. The ancient Persians were reluctant to kill cats, fearing there might be a djinn inside. If they killed the cat and freed the djinn, the djinn were likely to spend eternity avenging themselves on the one who’d destroyed their habitat. An old Egyptian legend warns that a djnn takes the form of a cat in order to a haunt a house.
The First Cat
I slamic lore also gives us a lovely legend that traces the origin of cats to Noah’s ark. The story goes that the two mice on the ark were reproducing so quickly that Noah soon had a serious problem. So he went to the female lion on board and passed his hand three times over her head. She then sneezed out a cat—undoubtedly the ancestor of Zoey’s sneezy cat Nala—and the mouse problem was soon solved.
Another legend says that the Prophet Mohammed so loved his own cat Muezza that he blessed her, giving all cats the ability to land on their feet when they fall, and giving them all a permanent place in the Islamic Paradise.
    In Mesoamerica and South America, jaguars are believed to able to travel easily between our realm and the spirit realm. Because of this, the jaguar is considered a kind of familiar, a spirit companion of great strength known as a nagual. During shamanic rituals, when the shaman enters the spirit realm—usually to heal others—he calls on his nagual to protect him from evil spirits and to fight any evil that might threaten him or those he’s trying to help. During these spirit journeys, the shaman shape-shifts, taking the form of the