Weird Tales of Weird Tails - A Fine Selection of Supernatural Short Stories about Were-Cats and Other Ghoulish Felines (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)

By Read Books Ltd.

These early works by various authors were originally published in the late 19th century and early 20th century and we are now republishing them with a brand new introduction as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'Weird Tales of Weird Tails' contains a collection of short stories about supernatural felines, and includes 'The King of the Cats' by Thomas Lyttelton (1807), 'The Gray Cat' by Barry Pain (1901), 'Ancient Sorceries' by Algernon Blackwood (1908), and many more. Therianthropy – the metamorphosis of humans into animals – is one of literature's oldest themes, and the werecat appears in some form in the folklore of virtually every global culture. African legends are replete with tales of people morphing into lions or leopards; Asian folklore features the often malevolent figure of the weretiger; and in Europe, werecats are found in the writings of Ancient Greece, and were explicitly condemned as heretical creatures during the witch trials of the early Modern period. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473399976

Book preview

Weird Tales of Weird Tails

A Fine Selection of Supernatural Short Stories about Were-Cats and Other Ghoulish Felines

By Various Authors

Cryptofiction Classics

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Introduction

The King of the Cats

The Eyes of the Panther

I. ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS MARRY WHEN INSANE

II. A ROOM MAY BE TOO NARROW FOR THREE, THOUGH ONE IS OUTSIDE

III. THE THEORY OF THE DEFENSE

IV. AN APPEAL TO THE CONSCIENCE OF GOD

The Gray Cat

Ancient Sorceries

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Tobermory

The Were-Tiger

In The Valley of the Sorceress

I

II

III

The Cats of Ulthar

The Empty Sleeve

1

2

3

4

5

Biographies

Ambrose Bierce

Algernon Blackwood

Sir Hugh Clifford

H. P. Lovecraft

Thomas Lyttelton

Hector Hugh Munro

Barry Pain

Sax Rohmer

Look out for more books in the Series

Introduction

Therianthropy – the metamorphosis of humans into animals – is one of literature’s oldest themes, and the werecat appears in some form in the folklore of virtually every global culture. African legends are replete with tales of people morphing into lions or leopards; Asian folklore features the often malevolent figure of the weretiger; and in Europe, werecats are found in the writings of Ancient Greece, and were explicitly condemned as heretical creatures during the witch trials of the early Modern period.

However, despite this long history, the character of the werecat has only recently become a popular one. Indeed, the term ‘werecat’ didn’t even enter the lexicon of popular culture until the post-war period, alongside an upsurge of interest in cryptozoology sparked by works such as Bernard Heuvelmans’ On the Track of Unknown Animals (1955) and Willy Ley’s Exotic Zoology (1959). Unlike the werewolf – a hugely popular fictional figure as far back as far back as Frederick Marryat’s 1839 novel The Phantom Ship – it is only in the last few decades that the werecat has gained artistic fame. During the eighties and nineties, werecats appeared in the pioneering RPG Dungeons and Dragons, and made notable appearances in the TV show The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers (1995) and the movie Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998). More recently, they have taken centre stage in books such as Christopher Paolini’s hugely popular Inheritance Cycle series (2002-2011), and TV shows such as the BBC’s Merlin and HBO’s True Blood. Werecats have also featured prominently in various Japanese manga series.

The stories in this collection, then, map the early genesis of a figure which has slowly but surely become a fixture of speculative fiction. Long before werecats were appearing in bestselling novels or widely viewed TV shows, the authors in this collection were in the process of converting disparate and folkloric tales into something resembling a literary tradition. Thomas Lyttelton’s The King of the Cats is based on both Scottish and Irish folklore, Ambrose Bierce’s The Eyes of the Panther is similarly influenced by Native American legend, Barry Pain’s The Gray Cat plays (albeit lightly) on tales of African werecats, and Hugh Clifford’s The Weretiger was an apparently literal rendering of the tribal beliefs of Malaysian natives. Following from these, the later willingness of famous authors such as H. H. Munro, Algernon Blackwood and H. P. Lovecraft to not only make use of the werecat figure, but also to expand and toy with its essential characteristics, demonstrate the figure’s increasingly established place within speculative fiction. In some of these tales, the process of therianthropy isn’t even included; it is a more general anthropomorphising of the feline form upon which the tale hinges. Like any enduring literary character – whether the vampire or the zombie or the elf – the werecat has become an increasingly varied entity, capable of manifesting all manner of feline weirdness.

The King of the Cats

by Thomas Lyttelton

LETTER XXXIX.

MUCH of the disputes, and consequently many of the inconveniencies, of this world, arise from the strange difficulty (for a strange one it is) that men find in understanding each other’s meaning. Hence the never-ending game of cross-purposes, in which all of us, at times, are so much engaged. A leading cause of this disunion is a negligence in using terms appropriate to their object. The philosopher, it is true, must generalize his ideas to compass the views of his enquiring mind. It is by such an application of his intellectual faculties, that he surmounts such a variety of obstacles; that he passes from individual man to an whole people; from a people, to the human race; from the time in which he lives, to the ages that are to come; from what he sees to that which is invisible. But in conveying the fruits of his study and reflection to others, he must condescend to weigh words, compare terms, and preclude all possibility of errour in those he instructs, by using a simplicity of definition, a perspicuity of expression, and, where the barrenness of language denies the immediate term, a neatness of periphrase which not only invites but creates conception.

You are pleased, in your last letter, to charge the present age with the crime of skepticism ; and you have abandoned yourself to a more than common energy on the subject. To tell you the truth, I do not very clearly perceive the tendency of your accusation. If it alludes to religion, you would, I think, find some difficulty to maintain your position: if it should glance at politicks, our national submission is certainly against you: or, leaving the higher concerns of the world, if you should apply your assertion to the ordinary intercourse and common transactions between man and man, you are truly unfortunate, as an extreme cullibility seems to be one of the leading features of the present times. The age in which we live does not possess so great a share, as former centuries, of that faith which is able to remove mountains: blind credulity, by the insults it so long offered to reason, has in a great measure destroyed itself, or is rather become modified into that sobriety of belief which is consistent with a rational being. The gaudy, awful, and presuming phantom of Papal authority, has long begun to disappear: that blazing meteor, which for so many ages dazzled the superstitious world, verges towards the horizon, and grows pale before the steady, embodied light of liberal, unimpeded science. But I cannot believe, although luxury and dissipation with their concomitant depravities have made such enormous strides among the higher orders, that infidelity in religious matters is a leading characteristick of our times. If we turn from the church to the state, the firm confidence of a very great majority of the people in a government, which, I am forced to confess, does not possess all the wisdom that such a government ought to possess, is a circumstance, which, were I to enlarge upon it, you would be perplexed to answer. In the ordinary transactions of life, the wantonness of commercial credit is well prepared to give the lie direct to any charge of incredulity. Ask Foley, Charles Fox, and a thousand others, what they think of modern infidelity; and they will tell you, that the Jews themselves, that unbelieving race, have deserted from the standard of skepticism, and, having borne the stigma of spiritual unbelief, for upwards of seventeen hundred years, are at this moment groaning beneath the effects of temporal credulity.

Credula turba sumus—We are a credulous race of beings; and the most steady professors of skepticism are deceived by others, and deceive themselves, every hour of the day. Religion, which commands, among its evident truths, the belief of matters which we cannot entirely comprehend, will sometimes so habituate the mind of its submissive disciple to acts of faith, that he does not know how to withhold his assent to the most improbable fictions of human fancy; and the Credo quia impossibile est of Tertullian is readily adopted by his yielding piety. I shall confirm the truth of this observation by a story which I have heard related, and is not more extraordinary in its nature than the tone, look, and language of belief which accompanied the relation. A traveller, benighted in a wild and mountainous country, (if my recollection does not fail me, in the Highlands of Scotland,) at length beholds the welcome light of a neighbouring habitation. He urges his horse towards it; when, instead of an house, he approached a kind of illuminated chapel, from whence issued the most alarming sounds he had ever heard. Though greatly surprised and terrified, he ventured to look through a window of the building, when he was amazed to see a large assembly of cats, who, arranged in solemn order, were lamenting over the corpse of one of their own species, which lay in state, and was surrounded with the various emblems of sovereignty.—Alarmed and terrified at this extraordinary spectacle, he hastened from the place with greater eagerness than he approached it; and arriving, some time after, at the house of a gentleman who never turned the wanderer from his gate, the impressions of what he had seen were so visible on his countenance, that his friendly host enquired into the cause of his anxiety. He accordingly told his story, and, having finished it, a large family cat, who had lain, during the narrative, before the fire, immediately started up, and very articulately exclaimed, "Then I am King of the Cats!" and, having thus announced its new dignity, the animal darted up the chimney and was seen no more.

Now, the man, who seriously repeated this strange and singular history, was a peer of the realm, had been concerned in the active scenes of life, and was held in high esteem and veneration among mankind for his talents, wisdom, and Christian piety. After this information, which I give you as a serious fact, what have you to say? It is impossible but you must immediately withdraw your charge of infidelity against a period which could produce one such implicit believer.

As for myself, I will readily confess to you that I am neither a skeptick nor a believer.—I have enough of skepticism to prevent the throwing my share of faith away: at the same time I feel within me that there is something, which I cannot very well explain, the belief whereof I ought to cultivate, and from whence I should derive much satisfaction and contentment, could I but frame my mind to the purpose. If, however, after all my reasoning, you should still continue to fix a skeptical character upon the present age, I trust that you will at least discard it from your own breast, while I assure you of the great regard with which I am

Your most sincere, humble servant.

The Eyes of the Panther

by Ambrose Bierce

I. ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS MARRY WHEN INSANE

A man and a woman--nature had done the grouping--sat on a rustic seat, in the late afternoon. The man was middle-aged, slender, swarthy, with the expression of a poet and the complexion of a pirate--a man at whom one would look again. The woman was young, blonde, graceful, with something in her figure and movements suggesting the word lithe. She was habited in a gray gown with odd brown markings in the texture. She may have been beautiful; one could not readily say, for her eyes denied attention to all else. They were gray-green, long and narrow, with an expression defying analysis. One could only know that they were disquieting. Cleopatra may have had such eyes.

The man and the woman talked.

Yes, said the woman, I love you, God knows! But marry you, no. I cannot, will not.

Irene, you have said that many times, yet always have denied me a reason. I’ve a right to know, to understand, to feel and prove my fortitude if I have it. Give me a reason.

For loving you?

The woman was smiling through her tears and her pallor. That did not stir any sense of humor in the man.

No; there is no reason for that. A reason for not marrying me. I’ve a right to know. I must know. I will know!

He had risen and was standing before her with clenched hands, on his face a frown--it might have been called a scowl. He looked as if he might attempt to learn by strangling her. She smiled no more--merely sat looking up into his face with a fixed, set regard that was utterly without emotion or sentiment. Yet it had something in it that tamed his resentment and made him shiver.

You are determined to have my reason? she asked in a tone that was entirely mechanical--a tone that might have been her look made audible.

If you please--if I’m not asking too much.

Apparently this lord of creation was yielding some part of his dominion over his co-creature.

Very well, you shall know: I am insane.

The man started, then looked incredulous and was conscious that he ought to be amused. But, again, the sense of humor failed him in his need and despite his disbelief he was profoundly disturbed by that which he did not believe. Between our convictions and our feelings there is no good understanding.

That is what the physicians would say, the woman continued--if they knew. I might myself prefer to call it a case of ‘possession.’ Sit down and hear what I have to say.

The man silently resumed his seat beside her on the rustic bench by the wayside. Over-against them on the eastern side of the valley the hills were already sunset-flushed and the stillness all about was of that peculiar quality that foretells the twilight. Something of its mysterious and significant solemnity had imparted itself to the man’s mood. In the spiritual, as in the material world, are signs and presages of night. Rarely meeting her look, and whenever he did so conscious of the indefinable dread with which, despite their feline beauty, her eyes always affected him, Jenner Brading listened in silence to the story told by Irene Marlowe. In deference to the reader’s possible prejudice against the artless method of an unpractised historian the author ventures to substitute his own version for hers.

II. A ROOM MAY BE TOO NARROW FOR THREE, THOUGH ONE IS OUTSIDE

In a little log house containing a single room sparely and rudely furnished, crouching on the floor against one of the walls, was a woman, clasping to her breast a child. Outside, a dense unbroken forest extended for many miles in every direction.