The Cat Cult in Heathen Scotland

Are ye the wildcat Finn had, a fierce hunter from glen to glen? Did you belong to Oscar at the battle of Blasguinn, did you wound champions there?

--- Old Verse by the Farmer at Heynish in Tiree to his Cat

The cat has been held in high regard as a powerful totem in Scotland since ancient times, a symbol of fierce valour to warriors, and to wise women, dark mystery. The Pictish wildcat goddess of the heather is Ura, possibly connected to the Cat Picts who ruled the Inse Caitt, Cat isles (Shetlands) and had as their mainland realm the province of Caitt, domain of the Cats. When the cult of Freyja was established in the isles, northern Scotland and Galloway by the Scots Norse, Caitt became Katanes or Caithness (Ness of the Cats) as it is known today.

As befitting a cat goddess of eroticism and lust, Freyja is hypnotically seductive. The activities surrounding her cult involved singing, dancing and sexual pleasure. Her cats are probably lynxes, who draw the chariot of the goddess during otherworld travel. Her priestesses, such as Thorbjorg the seeress, the Little Sybil in Eirik the Red's Saga, wore a hood lined with white cat's fur and catskin mittens with the white fur inside.

Black otherworldly cats were summoned up in the highlands and islands of the west with a sacrifice called the taighairm, in which live cats were roasted on spits. It is said that the black cats would come on hearing the infernal screeching of their earthly cousins and fulfil the demands of the sacrificer in return for the release of the remaining (not yet roasted) victims. The black cats always wreaked revenge wherever possible on those who tortured felines in this way, even though they might give in to mortal demands at the time.

There are many Scottish cat tales, particularly from the islands. A cat had its snout pushed into the floor after stealing milk from a woman's kirn on Tiree. It returned later with two companions to get revenge. One suggested using the back of its paws, but the other two favoured using the front of theirs, and clawed the woman to death.

A large wildcat known as Bald Entrails was killed by a hunter, who boasted of it upon returning home. A kitten in the house arose at this and said: 'Is Bald Entrails of the Cats dead? If it were not for the many nights I have enjoyed meat and milk in your home, I would have your long wizened gullet in my claws...' Then the kitten left and never came back.

In Wester Ross a red one eyed cat and two others turned up at a house in Torridon and enjoyed the hospitality of a farmer, who served them salmon. Afterwards this man was fishing at Loch Roag in Lewis and lodged at the house of three women. He was surprised when they thanked him for his recent kindness. The man asked when that had been and they replied it was when they had dined on his salmon.

Adopting cat form was said to be a favourite shape shifting among witches, as explained in this Lowland Scottish spell:

When we wold goe in the liknes of an cat, we say thryse ower:

I sall goe in till ane catt, with sorrow, and sych, and a blak shot

And I shall goe in the divellis nam, ay quill I com hom again!

And quhen we wold be owt of these shaps, we say:

Catt, catt, God send thee a blak shott! I was a catt just now, bot I sal

be in a woman's liknes evin now. Catt, catt, God send thee a blak shot!

It was believed that cats could cause rain by washing behind their ears or by turning their backs to a fire, that they could raise storms by slashing water with their claws.

It was the latter quality that induced the North Berwick witches to use cats in 1590 as a means of raising storms against King James VI. As he returned from Denmark with the new Queen of Scots, the witch Agnes Sampson tied the chiefest part of a dead man (the penis) and several joints of his body to a cat, which she cast into the sea. A storm rose and sank the ship carrying the queen's jewels, but the ship of the king himself, an enemy of witches, managed to dock safely.

The Scottish witch goddess of the medieval period was known as Mither o' the Mawkins or Mother of the Cats. Grimalkin was the name given to the grey cat of a witch, and to the pussies on the pussy willow. Pussy as a pet name panders to the sensual nature of the feline in its simultaneous reference to female genitalia. The Gaelic king of the cats is Cugarbhad, a possible source for the American name cougar, big cat. The ancient tribe of the Lugi in East Sutherland may have taken their name from the god Lug, whose totem was the lynx. The folk of that region later came to be called the Cataich or Cat People. The Clan Chattan is the Clan of the Cats, as is the Clan Mackintosh, whose motto is Touch Not The Cat Bot A Glove.

Thormod Morrisson