I really love these posts could you do one for Pele or Cait sith
Cait Sith - Day 41
Race: Beast
Alignment: Neutral
May 17th, 2024
There are a lot of cats this week! What's up with that? Cat monsters are a dime a dozen throughout mythology, and for good reason- whether it be the Bakeneko, Bastet, or the Wampus Cat, as I've said before, cats are aplenty throughout several spurts of folklore. One of the most famous, though, is the legendary hero of Puss in Boots, the eponymous pussycat in question. This 1600's story has had several bits of backing throughout the centuries following its publishing, but like most fairy tales, it wasn't just spurred on by a stroke of imagination or a fever dream- no, Puss in Boots' origin can be traced back years earlier to a celtic monster that serves as our demon of the day: Cait Sith, the fairy cat of Irish myth.
Accounts of the Cat-Síth, commonly misspelled as Cait Sith, date back far into the past, likely around the 13th century in a story titled "Le Morte d'Arthur, Morgan le Fay," though that was only really when the term was solidified. Fairies have been used as shorthand to explain paranatural phenomena for years before, albeit under different names, or even in different cultures- per instance, a Yōkai could be seen as a type of fairy, just centered in Japanese myth. Getting back on topic, though, one of the most peculiar of these fairies is the pitch black oversized cat in question. Typically depicted as a cat the size of a dog that is all black save for a white spot on its belly, the Cat-Síth is portrayed with many peculiar abilities, having humanlike intelligence and walking upright on two legs.
Due to these unique abilities, some purport that the Cat-Síth isn't exactly a usual fairy- many people support the idea that it is a witch who is able to transform between cat and human, and part of that legend also ties into the belief of cats having 9 lives- as the legend regarding the witch goes, she can transform between cat and human only 9 times, and if she were to cross that threshold, she'd be stuck as a cat for the rest of her days. I'm not sure if this is directly correlated to that old wives tale, but the connection between cats and 9's in folklore and idioms is certainly something to look into.
The origins of the Cat-Síth are unclear, with many scholars purporting the idea that the stories surrounding this feline fairy are headed and inspired by the Scottish wildcat, or the endangered hybrid between said wildcats and domestic cats, the Kellas cat. The main source for this seems to originate in the fact that Kellas cats share similar features to contemporary depictions of the Cat-Síth, being 'dog-sized' pitch black cats. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
I have a personal theory relating this to the stories of the Nekomata from Japanese myth as well- the odd behaviors of the Cat-Síth may have the same origin as the Nekomata's behaviors, that being a cat infected with rabies. This is my own personal pet theory, though, based on the similarities between yōkai and other such cryptid-esque monsters from the past. Yōkai, fairies, demons, cryptids- they could all have similar roots in animals infested with disease or people who had gone mad, only bastardized through the years and storytellings.
This fantastical feline fairy firmly roots itself as a strange bit of folklore, but what's up with its design in SMT? It's an obvious homage to a famous fairytale, drawing a connection between the Scotsman cat and one of the most popular cat creatures in history, that being everyone's favorite death defying feline, Puss in Boots.
The connection drawn between the devious daredevil Puss and the tricky tabby Cat-Síth is somewhat obvious, as both are legendary european stories based primarily off of the weird and crazy shit cats will commonly get up to. This spotlight is growing a bit long, so I won't regail you with the details of Puss's entire life story, but the curious connection drawn between Puss and the conniving calico that is Cat-Síth throughout the series' many demonic compendiums brings to mind a lot of curious ideas. It does seem entirely possible that Puss was partly inspired by this guileful grimalkin, given the relative timeframe between the two stories.
Jeez, I'm running out of wordplay, so I'll have to wrap this up. Cat-Síth has even more to it, frankly- this cat could have inspired so much more, indirectly, and I haven't even touched on Final Fantasy yet! This conniving cat is a recurring demon throughout the series for hopefully obvious reasons- Cat-Síth is probably the first fairy one thinks about in celtic lore, and this impish pussycat is certainly deserving of the demon of the day. Now, I'm gonna have to restock on catnip.
