hes and warlocks gathered in
great multitudes under the shape of cats. Four or five men were attacked
in a lone place by a number of these beasts. The men stood their ground,
and succeeded in slaying one cat and wounding many others. Next day a
number of wounded women were found in the town, and they gave the judge
an accurate account of all the circumstances connected with their
wounding." It is only natural, then, that Shakespeare, in his
description of the witches in "Macbeth," should have associated them
with the popular superstition which represents the cat as their agent--a
notion that no doubt originated in the classic story of Galanthis being
turned into a cat, and becoming, through the compassion of Hecate, her
priestess. From their supposed connection with witchcraft, cats were
formerly often tormented by the ignorant vulgar. Thus it appears[381]
that, in days gone by, they (occasionally fictitious ones) were hung up
in baskets and shot at with arrows. In some counties, too, they were
enclosed, with a quantity of soot, in wooden bottles suspended on a
line, and he who could beat out the bottom of the bottle as he ran under
it, and yet escape its contents, was the hero of the sport.[382]
Shakespeare alludes to this practice in "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1),
where Benedick says: "Hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me."

[372] "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," p. 267; Brand's "Pop.
Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 7.

[373] Malkin is a diminutive of "Mary;" "Maukin," the same
word, is still used in Scotland for a hare. "Notes to Macbeth,"
by Clark and Wright, 1877, p. 75.

[374] Sternberg's "Dialect and Folk-Lore of Northamptonshire,"
1851, p. 148.

[375] Henderson's "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties" 1879, p. 206.

[376] Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," 1863, p. 238.

[377] Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," 1851, vol. iii. p. 32.

[378] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 32; vol. iii. pp. 26-236.

[379] See Baring-Gould's "Book of Werewolves," 1869, p. 65.

[380] Ibid., p. 66.

[381] Dyce's "Glossary to Shakespeare," p. 70.

[382] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 39; also
Wright's "Essays on the Superstitions of the Middle Ages,"
1846.

Percy, in his "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" (1794, vol. i. p.
155), says: "It is still a diversion in Scotland to hang up a cat in a
small cask or firkin, half filled with soot; and then a p