1.

‘Although I have been a great many things in my time,’ said Silas, ‘I have never been a
mother. And I do not plan to begin now. But I can leave this place…..’

Mrs Owens said simply, ‘I cannot. My bones are here. And so are Owens’s. I’m never leaving.’

‘It must be good,’ said Silas, ‘to have somewhere you belong. Somewhere that’s home.’ There
was nothing wistful in the way he said this. His voice was drier than deserts, and he said it as if he were
simply stating something unarguable. Mrs Owens did not argue.

‘Do you think we will have long to wait?’

‘Not long,’ said Silas, but he was wrong about that.

Up in the amphitheatre on the side of the hill, the debate continued. That it was the Owenses who
had got involved in this nonsense, rather than some flibbertigibbet johnny-come-latelies, counted for a lot,
for the Owenses were respectable and respected. That Silas had volunteered to be the boy’s guardian had
weight- Silas was regarded with a certain wary awe by the graveyard folk, existing as he did on the
borderland between their world and the world they had left. But still, but still…

A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is the great democracy, and each of the
dead had a voice and an opinion as to whether the living child should be allowed to stay, and they were
each determined to be heard, that night.

[….]

The debate was over and ended, and without so much as a show of hands, had been decided. The
child called Nobody Owens would be given the Freedom of the Graveyard.’

(Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book)

2. For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect
nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their
own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-
day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly,
succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these
events have terrified— have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound
them. To me, they have presented little but Horror—to many they will seem less terrible
than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm
to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my
own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary
succession of very natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of
heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond
of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most
of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of
character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal
sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I
need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus
derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes
directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and
gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own.
Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most
agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an
astonishing degree. In speaking of her intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little
tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded
all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point—and I
mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Pluto—this was the cat's name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he
attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent
him from following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament
and character—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance had—(I blush to confess
it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable,
more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my
wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the
change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still
retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of
maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection,
they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at
length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish — even
Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that
the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight
wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself
no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than
fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-
pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its
eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning— when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch
—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been
guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I
again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a
frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as
usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old
heart left, as to be, at first, grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had
once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final
and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no
account. Phrenology finds no place for it among its organs. Yet I am not more sure that my soul
lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the
indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who
has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a [column 2:] vile or a silly action, for no
other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the
teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be
such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable
longing of the soul to vex itself—to offer violence to its own nature—to do wrong for the wrong's
sake only—that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon
the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it
to the limb of a tree;—hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest
remorse at my heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had
given me no reason of offence;—hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin
—a deadly sin that would so jeopardise my immortal soul as to place it—if such a thing were
possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible
God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry
of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great
difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The
destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself
thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the
disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts—and wish not to leave even a
possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one
exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which
stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The
plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to
its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons
seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The
words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached
and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The
impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There had been a rope about the
animal's neck.
When I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely regard it as less—my wonder and my
terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been
hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately
filled by the crowd—by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and
thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view
of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty
into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and
the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the
startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For
months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came
back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret
the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually
frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which
to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn
to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of
Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the
top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had
not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a
black cat—a very large one — fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every
respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large,
although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.
Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and
appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I
at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it—knew nothing
of it—had never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to
accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When
it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with
my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what
I had anticipated; but—I know not how or why it was—its evident fondness for myself rather
disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the
bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my
former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks,
strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it
with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a
pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I
brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance,
however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree,
that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of
my simplest and purest pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed
my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend.
Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with
its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk, it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me
down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast.
At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing,
partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at once— by
absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil— and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise
to define it. I am almost ashamed to own—yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to
own—that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one
of the merest chimæras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more
than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which
constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The
reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by
slow degrees—degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to
reject as fanciful—it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the
representation of an object that I shudder to name—and for this, above all, I loathed, and
dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared—it was now, I say, the image of
a hideous — of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!—oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror
and of Crime—of Agony and of Death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the [column 3:] wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a
brute beast —whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed—a brute beast to work out for me
—for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God— so much of insufferable wo! Alas!
neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature
left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to
find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that
I had no power to shake off— incumbent eternally upon my heart!
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me
succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates—the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The
moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from
the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned
myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building
which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and,
nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in
my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal
which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow
was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than
demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead
upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the
task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by
night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbours. Many projects entered my mind. At
one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At
another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about
casting it in the well in the yard—about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual
arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally, I hit upon what I
considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar—as
the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was admirably adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed,
and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the
atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection,
caused by a false chimney, or fire-place, that had been filled, or walled up, and made to resemble
the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert
the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious.
And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks,
and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position,
while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured
mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be
distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brick-work. When I
had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of
having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked
around triumphantly, and said to myself— "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I
had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment,
there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been
alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood.
It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence
of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night
—and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly
slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a
freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My
happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries
had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted—but of
course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the
house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in
the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers
bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for
the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat
calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded
my arms upon my bosom and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and
prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but
one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your
suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this—this is a
very well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I
uttered at all.]—"I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls—are you going,
gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere phrenzy of
bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the
brick-work behind which stood the ghastly corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the
reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the
tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly
swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—
a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell,
conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the
damnation!
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one
instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In
the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly
decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with
red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me
into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the
monster up within the tomb! (Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat)

3. It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this
I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is
cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique
Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of
the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his
cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and
remembers that which she hath forgotten.
In Ulthar, before ever the burgesses forbade the killing of cats, there dwelt an old
cotter and his wife who delighted to trap and slay the cats of their neighbours. Why they
did this I know not; save that many hate the voice of the cat in the night, and take it ill that
cats should run stealthily about yards and gardens at twilight. But whatever the reason,
this old man and woman took pleasure in trapping and slaying every cat which came near
to their hovel; and from some of the sounds heard after dark, many villagers fancied that
the manner of slaying was exceedingly peculiar. But the villagers did not discuss such
things with the old man and his wife; because of the habitual expression on the withered
faces of the two, and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under
spreading oaks at the back of a neglected yard. In truth, much as the owners of cats hated
these odd folk, they feared them more; and instead of berating them as brutal assassins,
merely took care that no cherished pet or mouser should stray toward the remote hovel
under the dark trees. When through some unavoidable oversight a cat was missed, and
sounds heard after dark, the loser would lament impotently; or console himself by
thanking Fate that it was not one of his children who had thus vanished. For the people of
Ulthar were simple, and knew not whence it is all cats first came.
One day a caravan of strange wanderers from the South entered the narrow cobbled
streets of Ulthar. Dark wanderers they were, and unlike the other roving folk who passed
through the village twice every year. In the market-place they told fortunes for silver, and
bought gay beads from the merchants. What was the land of these wanderers none could
tell; but it was seen that they were given to strange prayers, and that they had painted on
the sides of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads of cats, hawks,
rams, and lions. And the leader of the caravan wore a head-dress with two horns and a
curious disc betwixt the horns.
There was in this singular caravan a little boy with no father or mother, but only a tiny
black kitten to cherish. The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small
furry thing to mitigate his sorrow; and when one is very young, one can find great relief in
the lively antics of a black kitten. So the boy whom the dark people called Menes smiled
more often than he wept as he sate playing with his graceful kitten on the steps of an oddly
painted wagon.
 On the third morning of the wanderers’ stay in Ulthar, Menes could not find his kitten;
and as he sobbed aloud in the market-place certain villagers told him of the old man and
his wife, and of sounds heard in the night. And when he heard these things his sobbing
gave place to meditation, and finally to prayer. He stretched out his arms toward the sun
and prayed in a tongue no villager could understand; though indeed the villagers did not
try very hard to understand, since their attention was mostly taken up by the sky and the
odd shapes the clouds were assuming. It was very peculiar, but as the little boy uttered his
petition there seemed to form overhead the shadowy, nebulous figures of exotic things; of
hybrid creatures crowned with horn-flanked discs. Nature is full of such illusions to
impress the imaginative.
That night the wanderers left Ulthar, and were never seen again. And the householders
were troubled when they noticed that in all the village there was not a cat to be found.
From each hearth the familiar cat had vanished; cats large and small, black, grey, striped,
yellow, and white. Old Kranon, the burgomaster, swore that the dark folk had taken the
cats away in revenge for the killing of Menes’ kitten; and cursed the caravan and the little
boy. But Nith, the lean notary, declared that the old cotter and his wife were more likely
persons to suspect; for their hatred of cats was notorious and increasingly bold. Still, no
one durst complain to the sinister couple; even when little Atal, the innkeeper’s son,
vowed that he had at twilight seen all the cats of Ulthar in that accursed yard under the
trees, pacing very slowly and solemnly in a circle around the cottage, two abreast, as if in
performance of some unheard-of rite of beasts. The villagers did not know how much to
believe from so small a boy; and though they feared that the evil pair had charmed the cats
to their death, they preferred not to chide the old cotter till they met him outside his dark
and repellent yard.
So Ulthar went to sleep in vain anger; and when the people awaked at dawn—behold!
every cat was back at his accustomed hearth! Large and small, black, grey, striped, yellow,
and white, none was missing. Very sleek and fat did the cats appear, and sonorous with
purring content. The citizens talked with one another of the affair, and marvelled not a
little. Old Kranon again insisted that it was the dark folk who had taken them, since cats
did not return alive from the cottage of the ancient man and his wife. But all agreed on one
thing: that the refusal of all the cats to eat their portions of meat or drink their saucers of
milk was exceedingly curious. And for two whole days the sleek, lazy cats of Ulthar
would touch no food, but only doze by the fire or in the sun.
It was fully a week before the villagers noticed that no lights were appearing at dusk in
the windows of the cottage under the trees. Then the lean Nith remarked that no one had
seen the old man or his wife since the night the cats were away. In another week the
burgomaster decided to overcome his fears and call at the strangely silent dwelling as a
matter of duty, though in so doing he was careful to take with him Shang the blacksmith
and Thul the cutter of stone as witnesses. And when they had broken down the frail door
they found only this: two cleanly picked human skeletons on the earthen floor, and a
number of singular beetles crawling in the shadowy corners.
There was subsequently much talk among the burgesses of Ulthar. Zath, the coroner,
disputed at length with Nith, the lean notary; and Kranon and Shang and Thul were
overwhelmed with questions. Even little Atal, the innkeeper’s son, was closely questioned
and given a sweetmeat as reward. They talked of the old cotter and his wife, of the caravan
of dark wanderers, of small Menes and his black kitten, of the prayer of Menes and of the
sky during that prayer, of the doings of the cats on the night the caravan left, and of what
was later found in the cottage under the dark trees in the repellent yard.
And in the end the burgesses passed that remarkable law which is told of by traders in
Hatheg and discussed by travellers in Nir; namely, that in Ulthar no man may kill a cat.
(H.P.Lovecraft, The Cats of Ulthar)