The ever-present possibility of revenge for mistreatment in a past life
In ancient Memphis they were held in high esteem,
embalmed in oil and beeswax to await the afterlife.
Later they were bred for slaughter, sold for shekels,
sacrificial gifts to the goddess Bast transmogrified.
In Babylon they showed priests’ souls to paradise;
in Athens vengeful Hera cursed a maid with whiskers,
paws and twitching tail and sent her to the underworld
to serve Hecate, necromancer queen of darkness.
When York was Jorvik and oak longships sailed the Ouse,
chill winter nights were passed retelling old Valkyrie tales
of Freya’s chariot with its pair of harnessed felines,
transformed to witches after seven faithful years.
They had seven lives apiece in medieval Nantes,
a boon in times when spitting fur-balls trussed to stakes
and set alight beside some helpless toothless crone
were a familiar sight from Rotterdam to Rostock.
Wives in Whitby petted them as surety their men
would sail back safe with nets and catch intact,
but woe betide the crew who threw one overboard,
be it the ship’s best mouser or mangy stow’way scrag.
Blessed is the Falkirk house where one strolls in to stay
though they’re trickier to place in Albuquerque.
In Marseilles and Biarritz they’re known as mategots,
conjuring white magic to such masters as are kind.
In Osnabrück they’re bad news if they choose to cross
your path from right to left, though in Saku and Kyoto
they’re considered lucky, whichever way they pass…
but I’m alone in Istanbul, uncertain of the lore.
And so, as one cuts in front across the cobblestones
under the unblinking gaze of Nazar Boncuk
(a source of supernatural power since the Eye of Ra
first scanned a plan for pyramids sketched in the sand)
I watch my step.
Because you never know
with black cats.
The Eye of Ra, a powerful destructive force, was personified as the goddess Bast in feline form.
Nazar boncuklari are cobalt blue eye-shaped amulets said to protect against the Evil Eye.