Folklore Odds and Ends

A common folk cure for a sty on the eyelid was to rub it with the tail of a black cat.

Southern/Texas folklore: If a cat washes his face, there will be visitors.

Washing Face In the Ozark Mountains of Tennessee and Arkansas, when a girl received a proposal of marriage and was uncertain whether to accept, she took three hairs from a cat's tail and folded them in a paper, which she placed under the doorstep. Next morning, she carefully unfolded the paper to see if the three hairs had formed themselves into a Y or N and replied to her suitor accordingly.

An American superstition: When moving to a new home, put the cat in through the window, not the door, so that it will not leave.

Cat in Cradle The Pennsylvania Dutch still carry on the tradition of placing a cat in an empty cradle of a newlywed couple. The cat is supposed to grant their wish for children.

Traits usually associated with cats are curiosity, many lives, cleverness, unpredictability, healing and witchcraft since in ancient times it was believed that witches took the form of their cats at night.


Weather Lore

It is well known myth that cats have 9 lives, but what is perhaps less well known is their ability to forecast the weather: they can predict the wind by clawing at carpets and curtains; and rain is highly likely when a cat busily washes its ears.

A sneezing cat means rain on the way, and three sneezes in a row portends a cold for the cat's owner!

A cat running wildly about, darting here and there and clawing everything in sight means wind or a storm on the way; when the cat quiets down, the storm will soon blow itself out.

Cats washing over their ears has long been held to foretell rain; the old rhyme goes 'When Kitty washes behind her ears, we'll soon be tasting heaven's tears'.

Kittens Playing A cat which rolls over and over in the grass, claws the ground and behaves in a skittish manner, is indicating that a brief rain-shower is on the way.

When the cat is restless and moves from place to place without settling, it is foretelling hard winds.

A cat who sits with its back to the fire is said to be a portent of frost.

When a cat spends the night outdoors and caterwauls loudly, it may be foretelling a period of several days' bad weather.