Read Online Nyx in the House of Night by Jordan Dane - Free Book Online
Authors: Jordan Dane
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who could take the form of animals, and frequently appeared as—or lived inside of—cats. Having free will, djinn could be good or bad. Sometimes they brought their humans wealth and good fortune; other times, they tormented them. Humans seemed to gain a djinn’s help either by making offerings to them or enslaving them. (The “genie” in the story of Aladdin’s Lamp is an example of a djinn.) However, treating a djinn badly could result in the djinn taking revenge. The ancient Persians were reluctant to kill cats, fearing there might be a djinn inside. If they killed the cat and freed the djinn, the djinn were likely to spend eternity avenging themselves on the one who’d destroyed their habitat. An old Egyptian legend warns that a djnn takes the form of a cat in order to a haunt a house.
The First Cat
I slamic lore also gives us a lovely legend that traces the origin of cats to Noah’s ark. The story goes that the two mice on the ark were reproducing so quickly that Noah soon had a serious problem. So he went to the female lion on board and passed his hand three times over her head. She then sneezed out a cat—undoubtedly the ancestor of Zoey’s sneezy cat Nala—and the mouse problem was soon solved.
Another legend says that the Prophet Mohammed so loved his own cat Muezza that he blessed her, giving all cats the ability to land on their feet when they fall, and giving them all a permanent place in the Islamic Paradise.
In Mesoamerica and South America, jaguars are believed to able to travel easily between our realm and the spirit realm. Because of this, the jaguar is considered a kind of familiar, a spirit companion of great strength known as a nagual. During shamanic rituals, when the shaman enters the spirit realm—usually to heal others—he calls on his nagual to protect him from evil spirits and to fight any evil that might threaten him or those he’s trying to help. During these spirit journeys, the shaman shape-shifts, taking the form of the jaguar in order to cross over into the spirit realm.
In medieval China and Japan, cats were also accorded mystical powers. Cats are believed to have been smuggled into China from Egypt as early as the third century. It took another 600 years for them to show up in Japan, where they were imported from China and Korea. Cats got mixed reviews in these countries. It seems most of the folklore about them depicts them as demons—stealing from humans, shape-shifting from cat to woman and back again, wielding dancing balls of fire, and frightening people by walking two-legged across their roofs. There were also spectre-cats—the ghosts of cats—that delighted in haunting humans (though in Japan, tortoiseshell cats were believed to keep ghosts away. Go figure!). In China it was believed that after death humans turned into cats. Carl VanVechten tells of the Empress Wu, who decreed that no cats could enter her palace after she executed a court lady who had “threatened to turn the empress into a rat and tease her as a spectre-cat” (a story that can be found in Carl Van Vechten’s The Tiger in the House ).
In Japan, some cats were believed to be goblins and others, protectors against goblins. The famous story “The Boy Who Drew Cats” tells of cats painted on temple screens who came to life to defeat a giant rat goblin. Japanese cats also had a reputation for turning into beautiful women, who sometimes helped their owners—one story tells of a cat who turned into a geisha to earn money for the impoverished old couple who owned her—and sometimes turned out to be demons. Long-tailed cats, in particular, were considered capable of turning into demons, and one Japanese demon, the nekomata, was said to be an enormous cat with a forked tail.
Long Before Dracula . . .
“T he Vampire Cat of Nabeshima,” which dates back the Sengoku Era (1568-1615), tells of the Prince of Hizen, who had a beautiful consort named O Toyo living in his household. One night an enormous cat
The First Cat
I slamic lore also gives us a lovely legend that traces the origin of cats to Noah’s ark. The story goes that the two mice on the ark were reproducing so quickly that Noah soon had a serious problem. So he went to the female lion on board and passed his hand three times over her head. She then sneezed out a cat—undoubtedly the ancestor of Zoey’s sneezy cat Nala—and the mouse problem was soon solved.
Another legend says that the Prophet Mohammed so loved his own cat Muezza that he blessed her, giving all cats the ability to land on their feet when they fall, and giving them all a permanent place in the Islamic Paradise.
In Mesoamerica and South America, jaguars are believed to able to travel easily between our realm and the spirit realm. Because of this, the jaguar is considered a kind of familiar, a spirit companion of great strength known as a nagual. During shamanic rituals, when the shaman enters the spirit realm—usually to heal others—he calls on his nagual to protect him from evil spirits and to fight any evil that might threaten him or those he’s trying to help. During these spirit journeys, the shaman shape-shifts, taking the form of the jaguar in order to cross over into the spirit realm.
In medieval China and Japan, cats were also accorded mystical powers. Cats are believed to have been smuggled into China from Egypt as early as the third century. It took another 600 years for them to show up in Japan, where they were imported from China and Korea. Cats got mixed reviews in these countries. It seems most of the folklore about them depicts them as demons—stealing from humans, shape-shifting from cat to woman and back again, wielding dancing balls of fire, and frightening people by walking two-legged across their roofs. There were also spectre-cats—the ghosts of cats—that delighted in haunting humans (though in Japan, tortoiseshell cats were believed to keep ghosts away. Go figure!). In China it was believed that after death humans turned into cats. Carl VanVechten tells of the Empress Wu, who decreed that no cats could enter her palace after she executed a court lady who had “threatened to turn the empress into a rat and tease her as a spectre-cat” (a story that can be found in Carl Van Vechten’s The Tiger in the House ).
In Japan, some cats were believed to be goblins and others, protectors against goblins. The famous story “The Boy Who Drew Cats” tells of cats painted on temple screens who came to life to defeat a giant rat goblin. Japanese cats also had a reputation for turning into beautiful women, who sometimes helped their owners—one story tells of a cat who turned into a geisha to earn money for the impoverished old couple who owned her—and sometimes turned out to be demons. Long-tailed cats, in particular, were considered capable of turning into demons, and one Japanese demon, the nekomata, was said to be an enormous cat with a forked tail.
Long Before Dracula . . .
“T he Vampire Cat of Nabeshima,” which dates back the Sengoku Era (1568-1615), tells of the Prince of Hizen, who had a beautiful consort named O Toyo living in his household. One night an enormous cat
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