Man Found 400-Year-Old Mummified Cat in Wall

Funeral director Richard Parson was remodeling his house when he found something surprising in the walls: a 400-year-old mummified cat that might have been placed in the walls to ward off evil spirits.

"Apparently 400 years ago people put cats behind walls to ward off witches. It clearly works as, since we have lived in the village, we have not seen sight or sound of any witches."

Mr Parson said neighbours have told him the cat was previously found behind the wall 20 years ago, but was put back by another resident. He added: "There has been a local myth, a legend, that there was a cat buried in the house but of course we had no idea where that was. We were also told about a child's boot left in the house because it was once used as a cobblers', and was supposed to bring luck.

"I am not a superstitious man but the cat is a little bit of village history and adds charm to the property."

Link (Photo: APEX)


"Adds charm"?

What a gross idiot this person is. Dead cat in the wall. Mummies -- an absolute insult to the natural process of nature's recycling of materials. Superstitions causing such bizarre practices.

Reading this was like running into a goodly chunk of what is wrong with people all at once.

*I* thought "charm" was what employed when serving tea and speaking politely and kindly without pouring said tea down your guest's blouse.

Apparently, it's not for this maroon. It's a dead cat in the wall. Go figure. "Charming."
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Bravo! The best post I've read in days. Do tell us more! I too would like to see the house.

My family is in the home renovation and remodeling business here in Northern California. We have found a number of creatures - alive and dead - in the course of business, but never anything remotely as exciting as a mummified cat! Well, houses here in Sacramento are typically less than 100 years old. A few are older, but certainly not 400 years old. A pity.

The icing on the cake in this case is that Mr. Parson is a funeral director! I imagine that he knows something of mummies - perhaps very much indeed given his line of work. I wonder if dear old pussy underwent procedures to ensure mummification - as opposed to ordinary decomposition. If not, just imagine the foul odour! Zounds!

Tell us more about this exciting discovery. I know I will look, with great excitement and anticipaton, for a mummified cat, or small dog, or some other sort of beast, every time we tear down a wall for the remainder of my career.

Well done!

B.P. Mills - Sacramento, CA (USA)
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Poor kitteh, it looks tragicomic in that "I can haz oxygen?" rictus. BTW, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story vaguely reminiscent of this one. The "adds charm" nonsense is just your typical realtor spin.
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I think he uses the term "charm" to refer to keeping with the history of the house. I think he is able to handle it so freely because he is a funeral director.

My cousin was renovating his backyard in Halifax and came across bones. He called the police and the bones turned out to belong to a horse that died during the great Halifax explosion.
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This is what people used to do when they built a house. I think it's a great find.

As for messing up the natural recycling process, I'm sure that there are just a few more cats that weren't mummified throughout out history so it's probably going to be okay.
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Well, I'd rather find a bag of weed in my house than the charm of a dead animal. With the weed you can have a nice little party. With the dead animal... Best put it back where you found it and hope you didn't break the goodluck-spell or something like that. ;-)

But I defintely don't agree with Ben B. - However tragic for the animal in question- or in some other cultures in Days and cultures Past even the dead adversaries... that has been the cultural-natural way of things. It is fact and part of history. Perhaps good that we have in a sence grown over such practices, but still not a reason to just say the people of those times and practices were just backward fools. Different times and different knowledge. That's all. We nowadays most likely do other things that to them would look utterly daft. And this funeral director has a sence and respect for that part of history. So to my mind he's also definitely not a narrowminded moron- on the contrary I should even say.
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Ah, I thought this was in America which made me seriously question the existence of a 400 year old house! But yeah, in Devon, not that unlikely. It's an area with a lot of history.
Beer Mill Farm in Clawton is a self-catering place that's over 400 years old, for example.
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I should have said, the attitudes toward cats. Cats always seem to have borne the brunt of superstitious idiocy, with the possible exception of Egypt.
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I'm from Seattle so my first thought was "Wow, I wish we had houses even half that old around here." I once saw a mummified cat from around 500+ years ago when I was visiting France. It was disgusting, especially up close (and that was behind glass.) Needless to say, I would not be handling that thing.
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Gauldar what do you mean with that Ugborough was shrouded in darkness? It was the centre of the agricultural/religious world with a church dating from 1121 that once even was called the cathedral of the South Hams. ;-)
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> But I defintely don’t agree with Ben B.
> - However tragic for the animal in
> question- or in some other cultures
> in Days and cultures Past even the dead
> adversaries… that has been the cultural-natural
> way of things.

Slavery was cultural. It was never admirable. The Inquisitions were cultural. They bear only the very worst of messages from their perpetrators. Repression of women was (and is... I'm looking at you, moron Arabs) cultural. It was never admirable.

Anthrax is natural. It is not beneficial. Cyanide is natural. You still shouldn't ingest it. Animal venom is natural. Doesn't mean you should go out looking to be snake-bitten, or collecting tissue that has gone necrotic from a brown-recluse's bite.

Learn to see the world for what it is, not with some nonsensical veneer of "cool" you manufacture because something is unfamiliar or foreign. Sometimes, when something is discovered that looks odd or highly unusual, it isn't because "cool" people did these things or it's "a lost art." A lot of past practices were stupid at best, and superstitious nonsense at worst. Putting a dead animal in your wall is one of those things. Reacting in any other way than respectfully and carefully interring it and sterilizing the area where it was found is barbaric, not to mention stupid.
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Ben B.
"............Repression of women was (and is… I’m looking at you, moron Arabs) cultural. It was never admirable."
Wow, where are you from? I want to know where in the world women are so free that you feel you can point fingers
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"Anthrax is natural. It is not beneficial. Cyanide is natural. You still shouldn’t ingest it." No but both have their uses, so just discarding them as bad is somewhat selling these compounds short.
"Animal venom is natural. Doesn’t mean you should go out looking to be snake-bitten, or collecting tissue that has gone necrotic from a brown-recluse’s bite."
Yep, but it also doesn't mean that you just go out killing these stupid snakes because they could harm you.
"A lot of past practices were stupid at best, and superstitious nonsense at worst."
Okay, I can go along with that one.
"Reacting in any other way than respectfully and carefully interring it and sterilizing the area where it was found is barbaric, not to mention stupid."
Why barbaric...?
So if you find -burial- rituals of past civilisations in the USA that don't fit your Christian? modern ways, you just discard of them and you just sweep aside any objections to your actions from anyone that honours these practices from his or her forefathers because you think they behave barbaric and stupid...?

If how you think would be the correct way, lots of historic stuff in Europe and elsewhere and in the USA should be cleaned up pretty fast because they are relics from stupid barbaric times and actions and nowadays they are looked after with great care.

Wel... I hope you are not how the majority thinks. I think I begin to understand why Native Americans partly have so much problems with the way modern white folks treat the historic artifacts of those Natives...!

And please, Ben B. do not call all Arabs morons- They do not all suppress women, or ride camels and shoot AK47's at infidels.
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Yeah Gauldar I checked it out- Wwwwwwwweirrrrrd...!
Spooky in fact...! Some years ago and not far from that place more towards Modbury I once saw a cropcircle. ...Perhaps that also was a doing of The Cat...?
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@Foreigner1

Oh I wouldn't put it past... wait a minute, whats that scratching sound. Dear god! He's in the house and he's trying to kill me! Lucy, board up the doors and get my shotgun!
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I would just be a little leery of handing the corpse of a loved one over to this funeral director.

Interesting story, but I don't think I'd shove a dead cat back in the wall. I guess it's a tradition of a sort.
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