[1] Black was hated as the colors of the devil. In the same manner red was hated in Egypt as the color of Typhon.
[2] At what date then did the witch appear? In the age of despair, of that deep despair which the guilt of the church engendered. Unfalteringly I say, the witch is a crime of their own making.—Michelet.
[3] “It is not a little remarkable, though perfectly natural, that the introduction of the cat gave a new impulse to tales and fears of ghosts and enchantments. The sly, creeping, nocturnal grimalkin took rank at once with owls and bats, and soon surpassed them both as an exponent of all that is weird and supernatural. Entirely new conceptions of witchcraft were gained for the world when the black cat appeared upon the scene with her swollen tail, glistening eyes and unearthy yell.”—Ex.
[4] Steevens says it was permitted to a witch to take on a cattes body nine times.—Brand, 3, 89-90.
[5] Mr. E. F. Spicer, a taxidermist of Birmingham, whose great specialty is the artistic preparation of kittens for sale, will not purchase black ones, as he finds the superstition against black cats interferes with their sale.—“Pall Mall Gazette,” Nov. 13, 1886. But the United States, less superstitious, has recently witnessed the formation of a “Consolidated Cat Company” upon Puget Sound for the special propagation of black cats to be raised for their fur.
[6] City of God, Lib. XVIII. Charles F. Lummis, in a recent work, Some Strange Corners of Our Country, the Wonderland of the Southwest, refers to the power of the shamans to turn themselves at will into any animal shape, as a wolf, bear or dog.
[7] Italian women usually became cats. The Witch Hammer mentioned a belief in Lycanthropy and Metamorphosis. It gave the story of a countryman who was assaulted by three cats. He wounded them, after which three infamous witches were found wounded and bleeding.
[8] For a full account of this madness, and other forms that sometimes attacked whole communities during the middle Christian ages, see “Hecker.—Epidemics of the Middle Ages.”
[9] The conventicle of witches was said to be held on Mt. Atlas, “to which they rode upon a goat, a night crow, or an enchanted staff, or bestriding a broom staff. Sundry speeches belonged to these witches, the words whereof were neither Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, nor indeed deriving their Etymology from any known language.”