Slavic legend
Our ancestors considered the cat the animal of Veles, the god of cattle, agriculture and poetry. Therefore, we all know Kot-Bajun - a huge monster that sits on an iron pillar and puts the heroes to sleep, and then eats them. However, Bayun could be caught and tamed, then his tales became healing for the owner.In addition, cats in Slavic mythology have always been associated with a brownie and a sheepskin, both guardians could turn into cats or communicate with him. And they both loved milk, which cats willingly shared with them, preferring mice.In the tales of Bazhov, who preserved for us factory Ural legends, the Earth cat is often mentioned. In the Urals, it was believed that this beast lives underground, and only its red, fiery ears stick out above the ground. Where such ears appear, the treasure is buried there. And such a belief appeared, apparently due to the sulfurous lights escaping from the mountain voids.
Scandinavian
According to the Scandinavian eds, cats are the companions of the goddess Freya, the second oldest and most beautiful goddess Asgard. Beauty Freya, the leader of the Valkyries, the patroness of fairies and elves, loved to drive around the sky in a chariot drawn by two cats. These cats were like lynxes - large, furry and with tassels on their ears. Apparently, their descendants became Norwegian forest cats - a national treasure of Norway.In Iceland in the 19th century, a special legend appeared about the terrible Yule cat. This is a huge cat that lives with a cannibal abducting lazy children. The Yolsky cat wields during Christmas time (Yule), eating anyone who did not have time to get a woolen new thing by this time. The parents came up with a legend so that the children would help them more actively in working with sheep and their hair - the main source of income for Icelanders.
celtic
Cat Shee, which is found in Scottish and Irish legends, is a large black beast with a white spot on its chest. Apparently, myths about him appeared thanks to the Kellas cats - semi-mythical hybrids of local forest cats and domestic cats brought in by Roman legionnaires. Shi cat is neither evil nor kind. He can steal the souls of the dead until they are buried, or he can bless the house where he was fed milk to Samhain. According to another version, Cat Shi is a werewolf witch, she can only throw off the appearance of an animal 8 times. If he turns into a cat in the 9th, he will accept this image forever. Perhaps that is why we believe that a cat has 9 lives.Another mythical Irish cat is Irusan, the king of cats. Irusan once encroached on a famous minstrel, but Saint Kiaran threw a hot rod at the cat, killed him and saved the poet. Chapalu The Welsh triads preserved the tales of Chapalu or Cat Palug, a terrible beast that, with its exorbitant claws, terrified the settlements and devastated the crops. This cat gave birth to a pig Henwen, who, frightened of his evil, threw the offspring into the sea. But Palug survived because he was picked up and left by the peasants, whom he ate when he grew up. Only Sir Kay, one of the knights of the Round Table, could defeat the terrible cat.The goddess Caridwen, the goddess of rebirth, transformation and inspiration, also lived in Wales. White cats served Karidwen - they passed her orders to the ground.The British, among whom there are so many sailors and fishermen, had a legend about a sea cat. She needed to throw part of the catch so that she would not get angry and cause a storm. The sea cat is a witch who once went on a boat with her fisherman-groom. One of the sailors offered to throw her overboard, because the woman on the ship was not good. The witch got angry, called a storm, sweeping all the ships and destroying all the fishermen, and then all the same she jumped into the sea, but already in the form of a cat. interest.ru
greek
The Supreme Greek god Zeus was very fond of women and did not miss a single skirt. One of his chosen ones was Queen Alkmena, who gave birth to a son God - Hercules. However, Hercules was born for seven whole days, because Hera forced the midwife goddess Lyutsin to delay the birth of Alkmena. The jealous wife of Zeus wanted the cousin of Hercules to be the first in the Perseus dynasty, so the throne would not have been given to the divine bastard. But one of the servants of Alkmena, the red-haired Galanfide, told Lucina that the son of Zeus was already born despite all her efforts to prevent this. The goddess was seduced and allowed Alkmena to be relieved from the burden for real. In retaliation, the angry Hera turned Galanfida into a cat and sent her to hell so that she would live alone. But the seals are cute, and Hekate, the patroness of witches, healers and intersections, took pity on the former servant, so the cat joined the witchcraft. uh...The Greeks also had another cat goddess - Ayluros (Eiluros), as they called the Egyptian Bast, only identified it with the Moon, and, therefore, considered it a night incarnation of Artemis. In one of the myths, Artemis even turns into a cat to escape from the titan Typhon. The name of the goddess Eiluros gave the name fear of cats - eilurophobia
to be continued...
