While sometimes the hero metamorphosed into a cat, often it was the antagonist who underwent this transformation, especially into a black cat. This ambiguity explains the twofold status of cats in folklore, where they appear as both benevolent and evil.
Before cats spread to Europe, they often appeared in stories as mythical creatures, alongside dragons, unicorns, and basilisks. Until the late eighteenth century, the generic origin of cats was unclear; they were thought to be related to reptiles and birds. Rudyard Kipling's etiologic tale “The Cat Who Walked by Himself” from Just So Stories (1902) depicts cats as unreliable and independent as opposed to dogs, which are man's true friends. The practical uses of domestic cats as mousers contributed to their positive reputation, and in this capacity they were carried throughout the world on conquerors' and merchants' vessels. This is reflected in the British tale of Dick Whittington, who makes his fortune by sending a cat on his master's ship.
The ship ends up in Africa, where a local king buys the wonderful animal who can deliver his country from rodents. During the Middle Ages in Europe, cats became associated with evil powers. This was based partly on popular beliefs about cats' lewdness and partly on their Christian association with Satan. In the European tradition of Last Supper paintings, a cat represents Judas. Such attitudes led to cats being linked to witches. Indeed, black cats, together with ravens, frequently appear in folktales as witches' familiars (such as Grimalkin, a cat from Celtic lore, also featured in Macbeth), and witches themselves even turn into cats. An evil cat monster appears in King Arthur stories.
In Slavic folklore, Bayun-Cat is a giant hostile black cat that imposes irresistible sleepiness on people, often by telling tales or singing songs. This image is, however, ambiguous since it portrays the cat as creative and wise, as also reflected in later literary works such as E. T. A. Hoffmann's Lebensansichten des Katers Murr (The Life and Opinions of Cat Murr, 1820-22). The cat's mystifying nature is perhaps best expressed in the figure of the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865). A widely recognized trait ascribed to cats is that they have nine lives, apparently referring to their remarkable resilience. The view of cats as evil led to incredible cruelties toward them, including the Great Cat Massacre in France in the 1730s. During witch hunts, cats were burned together with their mistresses.
The most famous fairy-tale cat is undoubtedly Puss in Boots, a trickster figure featured in Charles Perrault's collection (1697) but also known in other cultures, where the same role is played by other animals-for instance, by a fox in Slavic folktales. Puss in Boots is endowed with human intelligence and speech. That he walks upright and wears a pair of boots puts him closer to human beings, even though he retains his feline cunning, agility, and hunting skills, which again underscores the cat's mysterious, double nature. Cats appear in a number of well-known animal tales, such as “The Bremen Town Musicians” and “The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership,” in stories involving helpful animals, and in tales based on the magical bride/bridegroom motif, including the Irish story of Cuculin/ Cuchulainn and Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy's “La chatte blanche” (“The White Cat,” 1698), a female contemporary of Puss in Boots.
Not unexpectedly, tomcats are frequently portrayed in fairy tales as adventurous and mischievous, while she-cats are connected to feminine witchcraft, shape shifting, mystery, and sexuality. A cat of indiscernible gender is featured in “The Story of Grandmother,” a version of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Here the cat is the voice of conscience, accusing the girl of eating her granny's flesh and drinking her blood. Taking into account the conventional connection between old women and their cats, this peripheral character may be the murdered grandmother's soul (or totem), similar to the bird in some versions of the Cinderella story. An enigmatic British tale is “The King of the Cats,” which suggests that cats have a secret realm of their own; in a Scandinavian version of the tale, the cat is a disguised troll.
A reminiscence of this tale can be found in children's literature, for instance, in Carbonel (1955) by Barbara Sleigh. In modern fairy tales and fantasy, the cat is widely featured as a magic helper and bearer of magic powers, especially assisting the hero in transportation between the everyday and the magical realm. Some children's authors such as Lloyd Alexander and Diana Wynne Jones are especially fond of feline characters, and generally cats are among the most popular characters in children's literature. The Cat in the Hat (1957) by Dr. Seuss employs the trickster and magic helper aspect of the folkloric cat. In contrast, in C. S. Lewis's Narnia stories, a cat becomes a traitor and is denied salvation. Images of cats originating in folklore are also found in works by Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, and Mikhail Bulgakov.
