Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/66

 40 when the ever famous witch-finder, Matthew Hopkins, admitted that he himself had beheld at dusk an evil spirit in the shape of a "white kitlyn." This innocent looking object speedily proved its diabolic nature by routing the pious man's greyhound, which turned tail and fled before the tiny creature; while Hopkins, unmindful for once of his serious duties, lost no time in following his dog. It was certainly a "kitlyn" of pluck and spirit that roamed the English lanes that pleasant summer eve.

Continental cats were as deeply incriminated as were those of Great Britain. A witch of Grandcour, named Elizabeth Blanche, confessed at her trial that she was in the habit of rubbing her body with a black ointment which transformed her into a cat, and enabled her to steal unnoticed through the darkness, when summoned to devilish rites. German witches trooped to the Brocken on Walpurgis night under the semblance of cats; and many were the witnesses who swore that they had tracked the little footmarks for miles to the place of meeting. El Gato Moro—the Moor-Cat—prowled in the moonlight about the citadel of Toledo, and pious Christians who beheld it prayed with exceeding fervour to be delivered from its spell. Jean Bodin, author of Demonomanie des Sorciers, tells us with sympathetic gravity a number of stories so curious