Monster Cats Around the World

LukeLore – Monster Cats Around The World

Hello everyone, and welcome to LukeLore. A quick deep dive into a folklore topic, where I share

some of the stories from around the world that have piqued my interest.

Welcome back all after what was not a planned break, but of note to future historians? 2026 has been a prime pain in the arse. Doing my part to help us all get through however, I have a great topic to pick back up with.

Monster Cats Around The World.

Being obviously a great area of research, we're no stranger to Monster Cats on LukeLore. All the way back at the beginning of the podcast, with an episode simply title Krampusnacht, we had the Yule Cat. Absolutely still an all time favourite Christmas Monster standing taller than a house and eating children who aren't wearing new clothes around the festivities. In the Lancashire Is Haunted And Now So Are You episode we had the Spectral Cat of Leyland, a delightfully weird fairy cat. One of our York episodes tells the tale of the Stone Cats of York, plus gives instructions to find a map to go check them out.

There's plenty more Monster Cats to talk about yet, though. So let's enjoy a whole topic of feline folklore together, first stop: Japan

SECTION BREAK – Of Course There Are Yokai

Speaking of things LukeLore is no stranger to, the Otherworldly Yokai of Japan. Now specifically in cat form, I'm sure some of the more notorious shape shifters can whip up a good kitty form in a pinch too but this entry is about the Bakeneko. A shapeshifter themselves, base form and origin being a household cat. A lot of folklore with roots in Shinto will speak to transformation brought about by age. Everything has a spirit, and those spirits can grow. Bakeneko pretty much just means “monster cat”, and so it goes that a cat who lives long enough can simply become one. They will get unnaturally large, a symptom of the oncoming change but also a potential trigger for the change from regular cat. Grow big enough naturally, then the cat may begin growing bigger UNnaturally. The tail getting strangely long is another sign of transformation, plus some more overt signs such as talking like a human and walking around on just their back legs. Licking lamp oil is supposed to be a warning sign of transformation too, but with fish oil use being common across the years that's probably just regular goofy goober cat activity more than it is the portent of strange events it could get interpreted as. A long tail in particular was seen as a warning that a cat could posses a human, a belief that does sadly appear to have resulted in historical tail docking of pets. Living long enough seems to be the main catalyst for changes though, in some stories when a cat has been raised for twelve years it can happen, some other stories specifically point to the number thirteen. In addition to these methods there's a less than happy seven year transformation clause I will get to soon. It is also possible to transform a cat through cruelty, which is a tale with a very simple moral to it: Don't be a dick. Kind of the golden rule of folklore really, but enough cruelty – especially if it ends in the killing of a cat – can then result in a Bakeneko appearing to curse and even ultimately kill the offending human in revenge. On that front? Good.

Going from acting more like humans can also lead to disguising themselves as one, a transformation trick that seems to require wearing a towel or napkin on their head as a part of whatever magic they are using. This form can be used to have a good time. A Bakeneko may appear as a human to take part in some game or contest, there are tales of one shapeshifting into a sumo wrestler to challenge all comers. Bakeneko can also be seen cavorting around streets like drunks having the time of their life, something which may sound harmless at first but one of their powers is to animate corpses they then use to puppet about for fun. You may head to a bizarre commotion one night that goes from “Why does that dancing drunk coming out of an alley have a towel on their head?” to seeing a congaline of zombies emerge behind them. They're no dark lord looking to take over the world with an army of the dead, they're just very inappropriately using someone's late relative as a performance prop, but it's probably an alarming party trick if they do happen to whip that one out for a laugh.

Some of the threat of a Bakeneko seems to come down to how they're a human sized cat, and a cat being a predator may mean bad things for the not-cats it encounters. The cursing behaviour does seem reserved for cruelty being done to a cat or else an existing Bakeneko disguised as one, for that I reiterate: Good. They also have something of a reputation for carving out territory in the wilds where they will go on to form a posse of wolves they set upon travellers, which is a bit random but also pretty cool. Not so cool for the wanderer who sees a cat riding a wolf into battle heading right for them, still in the abstract I'm rating that one “cool”. But there's a specific threat and spiritual activation factor for a Bekneko that's definitely bad news for a cat owner if it happens. There's a seven year mark to watch for, a tipping point that can lead to disaster. I'll illustrate it with a story.

The Tale of Takasu Genbei.

After seven years to the day, his mother's beloved cat suddenly vanished. It appeared to Takasu Genbei the grief of losing her pet had hit his mother hard, her personality appeared to completely change. She never seemed quite right again, from that point onwards avoiding spending time with family or friends. She would insist on eating alone in her room for some months, and based on what was to come I'm going to go ahead and assume when out of her room she would be seen wearing a towel or napkin on her head. Eventually, younger family members dared each other to peek in on her when she was eating. Sneaking a glimpse, they would then run to Takasu Genbei as the oldest son in a panic. They saw a cat monster gobbling up meat scraps in their mother's room! Sceptical, but worried for his mother, Takasu Genbei took up a weapon and threw the door open to his her room. There, he was indeed faced with a monstrous cat the size of a person, and in a panic slew the creature. With no sign of his mother in there, and not sure of what to do next, he closed up the room overnight until he could go find help. The next day, they open the room to find no monster, and still no mother, but a dead cat mixed up in a pile of his mother's clothes. In a panic the assembled group of concerned neighbours tore the room to pieces looking for the mother, noticing loose flooring they pulled up wooden planks to find what must have been the mother's body... Only it was a skeleton that had been completely gnawed clean. The seven year activation being a sort of curse, it led to the superstitious giving away cats to new homes before reaching that milestone.

While they certainly can be dangerous depending on how you encounter a Bakeneko, and if you made a Bakeneko from hurting a cat you have it coming, they're mostly supposed to be good natured and mischievous. Not too much of a consolation if you get eaten by one, or if it's having a grand old laugh leading a pack of wolves down a woodland trail to serve you for dinner, but there's a worse feline Yokai out there....

SECTION BREAK – The More Worrying Yokai

As an added complication, there's more than one Yokai transformation a regular cat can have over time in Japan. Something of a split in spiritual evolution, and “split” is the word. You need to watch the tail. If a cat becomes a Nekomata instead of a Bakeneko, its tail will split in two. You are then in deep, deep trouble because while a Bakeneko becomes a potentially dangerous spirit of chaos it does at least seem to have some sort of jolly nature to it too, even if that can involve using someone's late grandparents as marionettes. A Nekomata is much more overtly malicious towards humans. More than merely being dangerous to come across in the wrong way, it will seek humans out to hurt them.

Still able to do the necromantic puppetry trick, the Nekomata is much more likely to use the dead in strange rituals. They also seem to have taken some levels in Wizardry as it isn't unheard of for them to straight up lob a fireball at any humans stupid enough to disturb them. Some historic fires that consumed whole villages are said to come down to a cantankerous cat monster sorting out an infestation of humans they don't take kindly to with a towering inferno.

While a Bakeneko gets to human size, a Nekomata goes some steps further. Noteworthy terrors of the wilds preying upon dogs, boars, and bears; at least one story describing a giant split tail cat with a dog held comfortably in its jaws. A feral nature may be a key component in the divergent transformation here, a Nekomata is much more likely to take over a mountain to call its own or otherwise just be found in the wilds. Its somewhat chiller counterpart being more likely to reside in an urban area disguised as a human, joining a pack of wolves if it does take up in the wilderness. The Nekomata just starts stomping about the place a threat to all living things no matter how conventionally fearsome their prey may be, magic cat monster beats bear. There is even a Nekomatayama, or Mount Nekomata, in what is today's Toyama Prefecture. It's well renowned for having large feral cats that attack humans, making something of an immersive folklore exhibit for the brave and/or foolish.

The 1708 book Yamato Kaiiki, 'Mysterious Stories From Japan', has an interesting Nekomata story following a newly formed Yokai as opposed to one of the giant kitty mountain lords. A rich samurai had a beautiful great house, something truly fabulous worthy of his status and wealth, only it had a slight drawback. Constant wild poltergeist activity. We're talking full on Housu finale level bonkers events being unleashed on inhabitant or guest alike. Refusing to give up his rather nice home, a parade of potential exorcists were brought in. The samurai very much tried to kitchen sink this one. Priests and shamans of all types, plus anyone at all claiming a spiritual edge, got chucked at the problem but nothing would work. If the house was haunted? It was haunted by something that had no respect for any religion or tradition. Something true in its own way, only they weren't looking for the right ghostbuster, the problem had a different cause. A loyal servant was holding a vigil, doing his best to help however he could, when he spotted his master's cat carrying a shikigami with the samurai's name imprinted upon it. A shikigami is a strange doll, well... usually a sort of doll, forged from a small local spirit that can be used in a variety of often not exactly nice rituals. One with your name on is an exceptionally bad sign. Fortunately the servant was armed and had a blessed arrow to hand, part of the no expense spared kitchen sink exorcism attempts, with which he shot the cat through its head piercing the shikigami as well as striking the cat dead. I would normally frown upon this as a default position, but it DID turn out to be a good instinct. At some point the cat's tail had split into two, it having transformed into a Nekomata that went on to curse the home of its owner. It likely would have only grown bigger and stronger with the nightmare haunted house merely being its first steps.

With all Yokai being something of a mixed bag in nature, the otherwise terrifying Nekomata does at least have one inoffencive hobby. They like to play the shamisen, a traditional three string plucked instrument. This may be less whimsical than it first appears, as shamisen used to be made out of cat hide. The strings may have been cat gut also, if they're anything like some European instruments in the past. The songs a Nekomata would sing being sad ones about the fate of their brethren who were turned into such an instrument. Maybe don't disturb one if you come across it playing in the wild, just sneak off to safety before you hear “I CAST FIREBALL” screamed in Japanese.

SECTION BREAK – Just A Weird Little Guy

Let's move over to Europe now, although East Asia is a pretty target rich environment for monster cats. The Alpine mountains have something of a very strange one... This one is a cat dragon thing, sometimes known as The Alps Dragon, perhaps also being the same root tales of the Basilisk, but my favourite name for it purely because it's fun to say is the Tatzelwurm. Ranging around Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy with a heavy focus on the Alpine mountains specifically, this is a funky somewhat smaller creature than you may imagine since it does appear to be some sort of dragon. Kind of.

It's certainly small for a dragon, although not necessarily small compared to other creatures. Five to seven feet long at the top end, quite a bit smaller in some stories, it's mostly scaly serpentine tail. The front part is the stand out feature, it has a cat head and two tiny front legs, making this an angry cat serpentine dragon.

Given how widespread the creature is, it does have an assortment of other fun to say names. Stollenwurm, Springwurm, Arassas, Praatzelwurm, Daazelwurm, and Bergstutzen. The assortment of names gives some hints to its behaviour: “Clawed Serpent”, “Tunnel Worm”, and “Jumping Worm” tell something of a story in how they act when disturbed. I'll be sticking with either Tatzelwurm as my personal favourite from here on, or some variation of kitty snake. Their myths span a long stretch of time with written accounts going back as far as the 18th Century, the oral traditions spiralling back much further, and it continues on into the modern day as an occasionally reported - heavily debated - Cryptid. They're supposed to hibernate through the cold months then cause trouble when they wake up hungry, attacking livestock or even people in a ravenous rampage come the Spring. A Tatzelwurm is relatively simple to fight off, not being the powerful giant a lot of other dragons of folklore tend to be, but it's still an angry cat serpent with a few worrying tricks up its tiny foreleg sleeves.

Its bite is supposed to be deadly, in some stories it can belch poison gas to defend itself, and in other stories still it has acid blood! In one recorded encounter a man was out gathering herbs with his son when the child disturbed a Tatzelwurm that was napping under a rock. When his son screamed, the father ran over and poked the angry little dragon with a stick. This easily managed to drive it off, but the green blood of the creature got on the man's leg and he was stuck limping home from the burns he got.

There's a simple moral to that story, though. Don't disturb a sleeping dragon cat then poke it with a stick.

Reports of strange lizardlike creatures that could be a Tatzelwurm have been frequent across the years, with some I found being as recent as 2009.

I swear this is the correct pronunciation of this Swiss name, it's just one of those funny coincidences that sound ruder than they are in the correct context. Listeners on speakers beware, this name is written as F U C H S. So, the first written record of a Tatzelwurm was in 1779, by a Hans Fuchs. I will be referring to him simply as Hans from here. Hans was a Swiss farmer who had the misfortune of blundering across two Tatzelwurm at the same time, he managed to give what would go on to be the most common description of a snake as long as a man is tall, maybe a little longer still, with the head of a cat and two small clawed forelegs. Reported as bad tempered animals, they did not appear to have managed to injure Hans directly themselves, but he was so terrified he later died from a heart attack. Reports over the years can differ from zero to four legs, and they can be as small as only one foot long, sometimes more reptilian than feline depending on the report; but Hans's panicked recollection managed to become something of a standard. This could be a chicken and egg moment, as once his description was recorded it was then circulated when later sightings came up, kind of codifying the core features.

Tatzelwurm appear to be elusive and good at blending into their surroundings. Modern reports tend to be of strange tracks and unusual serpentine shadows caught in the corner of a hiker's eye. But if you should feel the need to go Cryptid hunting in the Alps? Spring is the worst, and therefore best, time to try and encounter one as they emerge ravenous from their burrows with the warming weather. Just... Keep your distance, and definitely don't poke it with a stick. They seem a bit too dangerous to make a good pet, with feline bad temper at being disturbed while they were sunbathing amplified by a variety of toxic surprises.

SECTION BREAK – An Ancient Civilization Who Really Like Cats

I think any sort of cat based folklore episode needs to make a stopover in Egypt. Ancient Egypt LOVED cats, and as such have an assortment of beliefs surrounding them plus the occasional monster myth. We could go with broader cat legends, especially as they pertain to the Egyptian afterlife. There's also at least one badass cat goddess to regale the bloody tale of. But I think for today we're going to go with the Sphinx.

The iconography of a Sphinx is pretty set in pop culture stone, they should be easily visually identifiable by basically everyone. They've gone into something of a modern day literary blender too, and can appear in a variety of fiction settings beyond an ersatz Egypt. A chimeric creature with the body of a lion, head of a human – quite commonly a woman, the wings of an eagle, and a wicked mind for riddles that exceeds a very present hunger for human flesh. Only this isn't quite the origin... This is the pop consciousness end point via the Greek interpretation of the older myth populised I the widespread tale of Oedipus.

Older myth, as in older than Classical Greece, was a little different. That period was a paltry 510 to 323 BCE, some 200 years starting 2,500 years ago. That timeframe's got nothing on Egypt. Ancient Egypt ran from 3150 BCE to 30 BCE. Around the time Greece was robbing the Sphinx to gender bend it, Ancient Egypt already had career archaeologists investigating the even more ancient origin point of their country from some 5000 years ago.

The original myth goes way back, something now referred to as an Androsphinx to distinguish it from the more common depiction. Masculine instead of feminine while also lacking the wings, this is what the Great Sphinx of Giza represents. Symbols of ferocity and wisdom, they were frequently associated with pharaohs for those positive traits. Whichever iteration of Sphinx you encounter, one overriding core behaviour that has survived some five aeons is that they are guardians. Androsphinxes across the millennia will adorn tombs and gateways. We don't actually actually know what a Sphinx is called, at least originally. “Sphinx” comes from the Greek “to squeeze”, most likely an association to how a lion kills with a crushing strangulating bite on the neck, a primal behaviour of the base form that would go on to become the Sphinx of Oedipus strangling anyone who failed the trial of riddles. It's just... Lost. A lot of Ancient Egypt is gone, things we take for granted are borrowed words. Like a cartouche used in hieroglyphics being the French for a rifle cartridge, a description French soldiers applied which stuck. We barely grasp a fraction of such a fundamental heartland for human civilization, we would have even less without the Rosetta Stone being discovered. Made in 196 BCE, then discovered in 1799 CE. Trying to wrap my mind around these timescales, and the sheer volume of what was lost, hurts my heart as much as my head. And it hurts my head quite a lot!

Let's head over to those young whippersnappers in Classical Greece, and unpack the Sphinx of Oedipus for the new fangled version of the cat monster which endures into the fantastical fiction of today.

Oedipus was a victim of a strange destiny, more specifically in how an attempt to avert a prophecy creates the circumstances necessary to fulfil it. I think we've crossed paths with poor Oedipus on a previous topic. The short version is the King of Thebes gets a prophecy his son will kill him and marry his mother, so the child gets thrown away. The gods laugh their asses off at this, sending baby Oedipus back the long way wherein he doesn't know who is parents are thus killing his father and marrying his mother when he does get there. Only by resisting the prophecy is it at all possible for it to happen, it being laid out as a divine trap mortals in their hubris inflict upon themselves. Its what the ancient pantheons of gods had instead of TV. To add insult to injury, Oedipus (who came to a bad enough end) is immortalised as the term Oedipus Complex – for when some wrongun fancies their mum. Going back to his journies on the way home, something that probably seemed horrifying at the time but the later self blinded Oedipus probably looked back on fondly after the prophecy fully resolved, there was a task to perform before the prodigal prince returned.

Going back to good old Homer, the Classical Greek Poet – not the cartoon character, we have the basis for the modern Sphinx. Oedipus was fleeing his adopted home of Corinth after the oracle of Delphi told him of his prophetic fratricide, vowing never to return as he didn't realise Polybus and Periboea weren't his parents by birth. He was instead on course to return to Thebes, unwittingly setting out to complete the fate he thought he was avoiding. He bumped into his birth father Laius, who was himself on the way to meet the Oracle seeking help in dealing with the Sphinx which was blocking a major pass and trading route between Thebes and the wider world. A petty dispute led to the fight in which Oedipus kills his father, Laius's prophecied end. “Blame” here is a tricky topic, as on the one hand the Fates were watching over Oedipus and on the other hand the prophetised death was decreed by the literal freaking Furies. Oedipus sneezing around the same campfire as Laius was apt to Rube Goldberg the king Final Destination style.

Tragedy not yet done unfolding, our hapless pawn of fate unfortunately has a date with his mother at the end of all this, so he carries on to Thebes and encounters the Sphinx herself. Depictions of her from clay pots through to unnecessarily horny Neoclassical paintings only put the Sphinx at about the size of an actual lion. I always think bigger when I think Sphinx, likely because of the immensity of the Great Sphinx of Giza, although contemporary fantasy depictions do seem to give that grandeur of scale as well. Person sized cat that can fly is probably dangerous enough in a time when pointy stick was the height of warfare though, so fair enough for the threat level she represented. They guarded this important route to Thebes, offering a riddle as a challenge. If you win? The Sphinx shall move on to a new pass somewhere else. If you fail? The Sphinx will strangle you to death, enjoying the life leave your eyes as its lion claws crush the air out of your throat, your pathetic attempts to push the chimeric powerhouse off of you mocked in your final moments. At some point in the near future your corpse will then be a Sphinx snack.

So, best get the bloody riddle right, hadn't you?

Here's where we get THE classic. This one has likely circulated to the point people don't even know it's the Sphinx's riddle, and any poor Sphinx trying it now will instantly get dunked on.

“What being, with only one voice, has sometimes two feet, sometimes three, sometimes four, and is weakest when it has the most?”