3/16/2007 - Cats stealing breath

Well I got the idea to talk about the old superstition of cats stealing the breath of sleaping infants from something I read in another blog, now I have heard this one before of course, it is faily common, but I did not know much more about it then that, so I decided to try and research a little more of the history behind, though I could not find one solid source for what it came from, I have found several different possible theories for how it could have gotteon started, ranging from Christain preists using it as a ploy to further demonize Paganisim, becasue cats have always had a strong assocation with pagans dating all the way back to thier divine status in ancient Egypt to thier rather common association to witches. To the idea that the cats were attractcted to milk residue left upon the babies lips and it appeared to women of the 17th century that the cats were sucking the breath out of the babies, and the idea that the cats sought to harm the infants because they were jealous, and the idea that the rumor might have been started up from rare incidents of a cat laying upon a sliping childs face and unintionally causing the infant to suffocate, and the incident then being transformed into this myth of cats stealing the breath away.

3/16/2007 - Untitled Comment