Why Are Cats Mythology’s Most Popular Creatures? | Fate & Fabled

We all know that

cats

are the true epitome of chaotic neutral. In a single breath, the internet's favorite furry

creatures

go from snuggling against your chest to scratching your face. Millions of people find their jumping, purring and prowling fascinating; others find it downright disconcerting. And it's not just the modern world that is obsessed with

cats

. Cats, not quite deities and definitely not human, have haunted our cultural imagination since ancient times. As demons, defenders, evil sidekicks, and elegant companions, they play many roles in culture and myths. But what makes cats so durable, and what does our feline fascination tell us about human nature?

With references to cats scattered throughout the ancient world, it is impossible to determine a single point of origin for our obsession. Prehistoric art reveals some surprising felines, from a painted red lion adorning the Pech Merle Cave in France to 7,000-year-old stone leopards surrounding the Uvda Temple in Israel. Other depictions show some unexpected contact between cats and humans. In the settlement of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, which prospered around 7000 BC. C., a woman is shown in a birth position, with her hands resting on the leopard's back for support. At another nearby site, figures of pregnant women and new mothers nursing leopards have been found.

These examples draw a direct line between cats and powerful motherhood. And while it is still debated whether cat mothers were deities, there is a cat woman lurking in al

most

every pantheon. Some goddesses take cats as co-conspirators, such as the Hindu figure of Durga. Riding on her lion, Durga is worshiped as a protective mother and menacing warrior. Flanked by lions, the Roman and Anatolian goddess Cybele also protects victims of war, while she reserves the right to inflict serious harm. The Norse goddess of love, Freya, traveled in a chariot pulled by giant cats. Her trustworthy steeds suggest Freya's grace and affection.

But she could also become fearsome as the leader of the all-female band of warriors, the Valkyries. But not all feline protectors are linked to femininity. Chinese guardian lions come in male and female forms and have long guarded Buddhist temples. Whether with a smile or a growl, these lions are agents of justice you definitely don't want to cross. All of these figures embody the paradoxical idea that tenderness and destruction are two sides of the same coin. Like their divine counterparts, cats could be objects of both admiration and fear, associated with the

most

formidable forces even as they were gradually welcomed into the home.

For a key example of how cats straddled the line between the domestic and the divine, we can turn to Ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians may be the most committed cats of all time, but this love was rooted in a degree of practicality. Between 4000 and 2000 BC. In C., more and more grain was stored in Egyptian cities, attracting rodents and, ultimately, cats. Far beyond pest control, cats came to be adored in their own right. An entire branch of the government was dedicated to its protection, and any stranger who harmed a cat was sentenced to death. Archaeological excavations have recovered thousands of mummified cats, amulets and statues, as well as cemeteries full of pets that accompanied their owners to the afterlife.

They were often depicted in the laps of the dead, but just in case you thought humans were in control here, cats could also be found terrorizing the underworld and presiding over human life. In addition to their animal forms, cats were theophanies or real manifestations of the Egyptian gods. With the body of a woman and the face of a lion, Sekhmet destroyed the enemies of Ancient Egypt. Often crowned with a solar disk, she burned her enemies to the ground and could spread wars and plagues. At the same time, she was honored as a great physician and was thought to have overseen the conception of the pharaohs.

On the other hand, Bastet, another cat goddess who also had a woman's body but a cat's face, was more of a cat goddess of the people, associated with childbirth, music and dance. Like Sekhmet, she was linked to the sun, but more in terms of warmth and security than fiery destruction. While all cats love to spend time in the sun, the Greek goddess Artemis worked by the light of the moon. Occasionally depicted in the form of a cat, Artemis was the goddess of hunting, animals and childbirth, and she could quickly kill any living being with her golden arrows.

As predators and protectors who could be associated with darkness and light, these mythical figures concretize the dual nature of the feline. For many, this ambivalence was a source of amazement and fascination. It caused some problems for others. Many mythologies present cats as a threat rather than an asset. In Persian Zoroastrian

mythology

, cats were created by the evil spirit and were believed to spread treachery. Some of the most sinister Japanese yōkai, or supernatural beings, are also cats. In one story, a young man named Takasu Genbei had a cat that disappeared, just as his mother retired from family life.

When he finally opened the door to his bedroom, Takasu saw not his mother, but a monstrous feline demon curled up in his clothes. Her goal was to save her by killing the beast, but her corpse only transformed into her missing cat. Weeks later, he found his mother's bones under the ground. Takasu's mother was plagued by a yōkai known as bakeneko, demons that devour their owners and inhabit their bodies. Bakeneko are formed when a normal cat drinks blood, licks too much lamp oil, or even if its tail grows too long. The bakeneko can turn into another feline yokai, the two-tailed nekomata, which is even more dangerous, growing to enormous sizes and launching fireballs at humans when it is not busy devouring them.

Like malevolent cats, these yokai represent an enduring fear of the unknown and what happens when we let it into our homes. The ancient Greeks also suffered from the plague of invading cats, especially the Nemean lion. The lion, a descendant of monsters with impenetrable skin, sharp teeth, and a taste for human flesh, was only defeated when Hercules barricaded him in his cave and strangled him with his bare hands, you know, because he's extra. From then on he wore the lion's skin, where it remained as a terrifying sign of his enormous power. When Hera learned that her husband Zues had impregnated Alcmene, she sent the goddess of childbirth Eileitia to delay her birth.

Alcmene's midwife, Galinthias, managed to distract Eileithyia while her son Hercules was being born. Hera was so furious that she turned Galinthias into a cat and banished her to the underworld. There she became the companion of the goddess of magic and discord, Hecate. With the rise of Christianity, this image of the unpredictable woman with her cat instilled fears about paganism and so-called dark magic. Distrust towards cats lasted for centuries. From Pope Gregory IX denouncing cats and black cats specifically as agents of Satan in the 13th century, to the rise of witch hunts in the Middle Ages and beyond.

In 1658, the clergyman Edward Topsel wrote that "the familiars of witches usually appear in the form of cats, which is an argument that this beast is dangerous to soul and body." In a time of great paranoia, woe betide any single woman who happens to be a cat lover! Across cultures, cats shape some of our most primal fears, perhaps the most famous example being the association of black cats with bad luck, bad omens, and the possibility of an unknown enemy lurking among us. On the other hand, some myths suggest that welcoming the unknown can be a good thing.

At the beginning of the 17th century, a cat invited the Japanese lord Ii Naotaka to take refuge in the Buddhist temple of Gotokuji. In gratitude, Ii Naotaka dedicated the temple to all cats. This legend is said to be the birth of the maneki-neko, or Japanese beckoning cat. Widely seen marking its paws at temples, shrines, businesses and homes, the beckoning cat is a good luck feline. As predators and prey, tricksters and tormentors, mythical cats can rarely be reduced to pure good or absolute evil. It is telling, then, that cats are often associated with liminal spaces, particularly the ghostly line that separates the living from the dead.

Depending on who you ask, cats can help or hinder souls' journey to the next life. Certain Buddhist sects believe that the soul is transferred to a cat for safekeeping, while in Finnish folklore cats were tasked with transporting the souls of the dead to the underworld. Other mythologies are less confident. The Celtic creature Cáit Sith appears as a black cat with white markings on its chest and tends to sneak up on mourners and steal the soul of his beloved. And then there's the Japanese Kasha, a demonic corpse hunter... but you can look for him in Monstrum.

Nowadays you can find a cat in more domestic liminal spaces: camping out in sock drawers, squeezing through doorways, and curling up in that space between the shelf and the floor that never quite clears. Although they have become stalwarts of our homes, there is always something disconcerting about these

creatures

and their gaze can be... disturbing. Centuries later, we struggle with the same questions as our ancestors: are cats completely domesticated, why do they look at us like that, and what is that sound they make? In the end, the intrigue of cats arises from their mystery and, although we are no closer to solving it, it is clear that the feline imagination cannot be domesticated.