Follow TV Tropes

Following

All Witches Have Cats

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sbnew.png
"When he couldn't find any witches to burn, the duke widened the definition to any ugly woman who owned a cat. When he couldn't even find any of those, he made the women of the village hold a beauty contest. First prize was a night with the duke, last prize was a cat."

In early modern European superstition, it was thought that one way to identify if someone was a witch was if they owned a cat. This cat was believed to be some form of demon or evil spirit in disguise, acting as the witch's Familiar and aiding her in her spells. These days witches and cats don't have such bad reputations, but their association with each other persists and the once perhaps dubious stereotype has become Truth in Television as those into modern Witchcraft favor cats due to the old claims. If a show has a witch, there is an extremely good chance that the witch has a cat. Sometimes simply owning a cat is used as a hint or foreshadowing that a woman living alone might have a secret magical nature. Conversely, if a witch is losing her powers, a common first clue is that her cat spends less time by her side.

And doesn't that make purrfect sense? Everyone knows that Cats Are Magic, not to mention the best, so of course any witch worth her broomstick would own one, if not a whole clowder of cats. In fact, it's not uncommon for a witch to have such a soft spot for her feline friends that she doubles as a Crazy Cat Lady, owning a dozen or more. Such witches are usually considered quirky and tend to be of the good variety, the same if a witch owns cats with coat colors outside the stereotypical black. The cat is the most common Familiar for a witch by far, though sometimes the association is so strong that it's not that the witch owns a cat, but she is a cat or can transform into a cat at will!

The association is most concrete between female witches and cats, though occasionally if a work allows male witches, or warlocks and wizards are simply male witches, the association will spill over. In European folklore, black cats have been considered to be familiars of witches since the Middle Ages, so this trope is Older Than Print.

Compare Right-Hand Cat, Cats Are Magic, and Familiar. See Pirate Parrot for another animal in a similar position to another popular figure in fictional stories. Sometimes the cat in question is a Panthera Awesome.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • In Black Clover, Vanessa is a witch from the Forest of Witches. After gaining her "red thread of fate" magic, it manifests itself as her cat familiar Rouge.
  • Cafe Kichijoji De: Played with. Sukekiyo is technically the store's cat, but it is most attached to Minagawa, the Ambiguously Human chef who frequently dabbles with magic and witchcraft.
  • The eponymous Sakura of Cardcaptor Sakura has instead what appears to be a small yellow lion cub (or teddy bear, depending on whom you ask) with wings, that she calls "Kero-chan". It turns out that "Kero-chan"'s real name is Cerberus, and he's really a full-sized, armored lion with wings. Similarly, Eriol has what looks like a small, winged black kitten, but is really a panther with blue butterfly wings. Both of these animals are Sun Guardians.
  • In Flying Witch witch sisters Makoto and Akane own very intelligent cat familiars, Chito and Kenny. Chito is able to cover for her mistress's tendency to get lost, while Kenny is something of an anthropologist. However, it's not a universal trait: Inukai has a hamster familiar who is very frightened of Chito when they're introduced to each other.
  • GoLion: Honerva (and her counterpart Haggar of Voltron) has a blue cat, Jaga, whom she uses in various evil schemes.
  • In the Lyrical Nanoha franchise, cats are one of the most common animals used as Familiars by mages in the setting, with wolves being the only other animal we've seen used. Specific examples include Rynith, the Lieze Twins, and the movie versions of the Materials.
  • Sailor Moon: The Sailor Soldiers, a Magical Girl Warrior group, have three guardian cats Artemis (white), Luna (black - though sometimes appears dark blue), and their daughter Diana (grey). This is most likely a spill over from the fact that MGW trope descended from the Cute Witch.
  • Soul Eater:
    • In the first episode, what Maka and Soul thought was a witch turned out to actually be a cat that had a human form and magic and merely dressed like a witch. The actual witches however have their own Animal Motifs, none of which have been cats.
    • A later episode offhandedly reveals there's been a witch with a cat motif in plain sight all along, and we didn't notice the latter point because it's a domestic cat — the personality feedback from which being one of the things which scares her into repressing her powers as much as possible. (Apparently she'd be a lot more like Blair if she let herself slide into full witchiness, and she's not really inclined that way.)

    Comic Books 
  • DC Comics:
  • In Hex Wives, Danali is almost always accompanied by her fat white cat. In #4, one of the Architects refers to her as possessing some kind of 'cat magic'. In the same issue, when Becky starts flying after her magical abilities activate, the Architects miss it, because a large number of cats swarm all of the cameras, blocking their view.
  • Marvel Comics:
  • Josie And The Pussy Cats: Alexandra Cabot has witchcraft powers, which may depend upon having her cat Sebastian with her, Depending on the Writer. Even with her familiar's help, Alexandra's magic is always fragile or off-target.
  • In Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sabrina owns a black cat named Salem. The live-action TV show portrayed him as a talking cat, who used to be a criminal warlock, and was turned into a cat as part of his sentence after being caught.
  • In Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, Rowen's familiar Pooka is a black goblin-cat.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live Action 
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks: Miss Price has learned to be a witch through mail-order lessons. She doesn't believe in giving names to animals, but calls her cat Cosmic Creepers "because that's the name he came with". One presumes she got a black cat because witches are expected to have one. That said, she never shows cruelty or resentment to the animal and makes sure he's fed (but not on houseguests that she's turned into rabbits, of course!).
  • In Bell, Book and Candle, Hot Witch Gillian Holroyd has Pyewacket, a Siamese cat that she uses as her Familiar. When she gives up her powers at the end, Pyewacket runs away.
  • In the film, Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, aunt Agatha is an evil witch that owns a cat.
  • Inverted in Hocus Pocus. The Sanderson sisters transform one of the heroes, Thackery Binx, into a black cat For the Evulz after he fails to save his sister from them. By the time of the main narrative, he's their sworn enemy.
  • The Love Witch: During Elaine's monologue about reincarnation, she claims that she would like to be reincarnated as a cat, having felt depressed when her own cat died.
  • The Uncanny: In "Quebec province, 1975", Lucy turns out to be a young witch in the making, and her cat Wellington is implicitly her familiar. As her mean cousin Angela will soon learn, attempt to deprive a witch of her cat is a very bad idea.

    Literature 
  • Anna Dressed in Blood: Cas' mother has a cat named Tybalt.
  • In the Arcia Chronicles, Gerika keeps pet lynxes before and after she gains powers, but switches to ordinary cats when she pretends to be a swamp witch while healing Alexander in book five. She can also possess her cats and use them as conduits for her power.
  • Joan Carris's Witch-Cat: Cats from the Order of Greymalkins act as witches' teachers, showing them how to use their magic responsibly. In the case of the protagonist Rosetta, her initial job is just trying to show twentieth-century witch Gwen that magic exists in the first place, but all of her attempts keep getting Hand Waved away with practical explanations.
  • Witch Green-Eyes from Book of Brownies has a black cat as her familiar, which she summons for casting a spell late in the book.
  • In Dark Lord of Derkholm, Querida, the most powerful witch on the continent, owns three cats.
  • A Discovery of Witches features a precognitive cat named Tabitha, who is owned by the main character's witchy aunts.
  • Discworld: Not all witches have cats, but the association is there.
    • Among the coven of witches in Lancre, Nanny Ogg owns a battle-scarred tomcat named Greebo, who's basically Cats Are Mean personified.
    • During the events of Wyrd Sisters, the witch Magrat is mentioned to not like cats much.
    • Granny Weatherwax, oldest member of the coven, regards cats as "nasty, cruel little bastards." Later in the series, she's given a white kitten, which she initially disdains but soon grows quite fond of, not that she’d ever admit it. She merely names it "You", as in "get down from there, You" or "stop that, You." You is later inherited by Tiffany Aching in The Shepherd's Crown after Granny's death.
    • In The Wee Free Men the victim of a witch hunt Tiffany witnessed when she was younger was convicted on the basis of being an old woman who owned a cat. She wasn't actually a witch though.
  • Dorrie the Little Witch: The titular Dorrie has a cat named Gink.
  • In Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Morwen, a famous witch, owns a large number of cats of many different colors as her familiars. Other witches think she's strange for numerous reasons, but one of those is that she owns a dozen cats, none of them black.
    Deep in the Enchanted Forest, in a neat grey house with a wide porch and a red roof, lived the witch Morwen and her nine cats. The cats were named Murgatroyd, Fiddlesticks, Miss Eliza Tudor, Scorn, Jasmine, Trouble, Jasper Darlington Higgins IV, Chaos, and Aunt Ophelia, and not one of them looked like a witch's cat. They were tabby, grey, white, tortoiseshell, ginger, seal brown, and every other cat color in the world than a proper and "witchy" black.
  • Eleanor Estes' The Witch Family: This novel has real, right, regular witches — Old Witch, six-year-old Hannah, and six-month-old Beebee, who dress in black, ride broomsticks, and have cats. Beebee has a tiny kitten who clings upside down to his mistress' broomstick.
  • In the Fairy Oak series:
    • The Perwinkles adopt Pampuria, a white cat that used to belong to a family acquaintance after he died. Vanilla, a Witch of the Light, is her main caretaker.
    • The Poppys, including the witches Shirley and Mallowrose have a cat named Scratch.
    • The Blossoms, a family with two known magic users, Matricaria and Cicerbita, have Apple Spottail.
  • Foeksia De Miniheks (Foeksia the little witch): In one story, Foeksia wants to adopt a stray cat she found, but can't since her father is allergic to cats and quickly reminds her that only evil witches own cats.
  • Gobbolino The Witches Cat: This story Subverts the normal relationship between cats and witches. The eponymous Gobbolino has no interest in being a witch's familiar and would prefer the life of a humble house cat.
  • Goblins in the Castle: The sorceress Granny Pinchbottom has a black cat, seen briefly in the first book and revealed in Goblins on the Prowl to be named Midnight, in her cottage.
  • Harry Potter:
    • A cat is one of the animals which wizarding students can bring as a pet to Hogwarts. In this case, the cats are merely pets, not familiars. According to bonus materials, many of them are part Kneazle, a magical animal that's basically a smarter cat. In book three, Hermione gets one named Crookshanks.
    • A witch and teacher, Professor McGonagall, can turn into a cat.
    • Hermione is accidentally transformed into a cat in Chamber of Secrets, thanks to the Polyjuice Potion when she thought she took a sample of Millicent Bulstrode's hair off her robe during their dueling club match so she, Harry and Ron can infiltrate the Slytherin common room to interrogate Malfoy in hopes of finding the culprit responsible for the students being petrified, but grabbed a cat hair instead.
    • Umbridge has a Cats Are Mean motif whenever she's not being compared to a toad, but doesn't actually own one. Instead, she has a cat Patronus and a collection of rather tacky cutlery with enchanted pictures of cats on them.
    • In something of an Inversion, Argus Filch and Mrs. Figg are both noted for a love of cats, despite being Squibs.
  • In The Hollows Rachel lives with a cat, though the cat doesn't seem to like her very much.
  • The House of Night: Vampyres are basically a Mage Species, as they cast spells and even practice a pseudo-Wiccan religion, and apparently have a great affinity for cats. (Cats even used to be killed in the old days, under the belief that they turned people into vampyres.) Neferet has one named Skylar, who rejects her when her Heel–Face Turn is revealed.
  • The Lord of the Rings has an offhand reference to "the cats of Queen Berúthiel." The Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth expands on the story: Berúthiel was a Black Númenorean who married the king of Gondor, probably for political reasons, and used her cats to spy on everyone in the kingdom. Eventually, her husband separated from her and sent her and the cats away by ship. Interestingly, Word of God describes her as the sort of person who hates cats but finds that they follow her around anyway; she tortured some but trained a few for her purposes.
    "She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things 'that men wish most to keep hidden,' setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass."
  • Lord Peter Wimsey: In the short story "The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey", Wimsey poses as a wizard in a remote and backwards village. Nine white cats form part of his disguise.
  • In the fantasy novella Magic, Inc. by Robert A. Heinlein, the elderly witch Granny Jennings has a cat named Seraphin, who has a tendency to mysteriously show up in the middle of magical rites (even when he has been left shut up in Jennings' house) and eventually accompanies the protagonists to Hell itself.
  • The Marvellous Land of Snergs: Mother Meldrum, an evil witch who lives in a gloomy forest, owns seven black cats.
  • Meg And Mog: The title characters are a classic witch and her black-and-white-striped cat.
  • John Masefield's The Midnight Folk: Blackmalkin and Greymalkin are witch's familiars, while Nibbins used to be a familiar, but is now a household cat who sides with Kay.
  • Moongobble and Me: Felicity the Finder, a witch introduced in book 2, has a black cat named Midnight who serves as her Familiar.
  • All the Players in A Night in the Lonesome October have an animal familiar of some sort. Jill the Mad Witch has a cat.
  • Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos: The witch Virginia "Ginny" Matuchek has a big black tomcat named Svartalf as a familiar.
  • Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: Witch Princess Bianca has her cat Jinkies as a familiar, as said in the first story:
    Her familiar uncurled his body [...] and meowed softly. Jinkies was a cute little black cat with a white star on his chest and a huge appetite hiding behind it.
  • Retired Witches Mysteries: All the members of the coven have cats, who are reincarnated from humans and serve as their familiars. It's a tradition for witches in general to have them, though some don't.
    • Olivia's cat Harper, a Russian blue with a gray and white coat, was a British sailor from the 1500s.
    • Molly's cat Isabelle a long-haired gray, was a fourteenth-century witch who was burned at the stake.
    • Elsie's cat Barnabas, a ginger tabby Manx, was a preacher from the 1700s who was mistakenly hanged for witchcraft.
    • Dorothy's cat is a tuxedo named Hemlock (originally called Scooter, but he revealed his real name after she gained her magical tool and became able to communicate with him), a Greek scholar who studied with Plato and witnessed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompei.
    • Brian averts it when they first meet him (which Molly thinks in book 3 is a sign of his parents neglecting aspects of his training, but which his grandfather later reveals is because Abdon thinks having one is a sign of weakness), but discusses the possibility in book 2. In book 3, he does get one from Dorothy, who turns out to be a shifter named Kalyna, and the book ends with Dorothy giving him a replacement, a black-and-white cat named Laue.
  • In the children's story Room On The Broom (as well as the (cartoon adaptation) the ginger-haired witch has a ginger-haired cat. She picks up a few other animal friends over the course of the story.
  • In Rosemary's Baby, Mrs. Sabatini is the only coven member mentioned as having a cat. There is a Persian cat breeder in the building but he's not involved with the coven.
  • Septimus Heap: Most witches mentioned by name own cats.
  • The Odd Sisters in A Tale of... have a cat named Pflanze, introduced in the second book.
  • Time Cat: One of the adventures the boy goes on with the time-traveling cat leads to the boy and the cat being accused of witchcraft. The accusers may have had a point, because again, it's a time-traveling cat.
  • Ann Petrie's Tituba Of Salem Village: Tituba is suspected for a number of reasons, including her skill at spinning and her male calico cat. This kind of cat is called a money cat and is usually regarded as attracting good luck, similar to Maneki Neko. She has to drive him away when the serious hysteria starts.
  • In The Wheel of Time series, it is noted that female channelers known as Aes Sedai tend to attract cats. They're not familiars or magical in any way (although some promote the myth to increase their air of mystery), it's just one of those odd things that happens. Once male channelers start showing up, the same thing happens with dogs. Also, a channeler tends to drive away the animal of the other gender (men repulse cats, women repulse dogs).
  • In Wise Child, Juniper is believed by the townsfolk, including Wise Child at the beginning, to be a witch, and she has two cats named Ruby and Pearl. They seem to serve no real magical purpose, however. The closest to it that it gets is that Pearl jumps on Wise Child's broom and accompanies her on her doran test, and it's implied she speaks, but it's not elaborated on.
  • The Witch of Knightcharm: Amanda, a witch on Emily's original team, has a cat familiar named Princess.
  • The Witches of Worm has Worm, who Jessica believes to be a witch's familiar.
  • The Worst Witch: All witches receive a black cat. Except the loser protagonist, who gets a striped cat that can't balance on a broom (she then settles for carrying it in a bag).

    Live-Action TV 
  • Bewitched: A few witch/warlock characters have cat familiars, which can assume human form (usually attractive and female). One episode indicates that transformed familiars automatically revert to their feline forms at midnight, but this isn't touched upon in other episodes. Also, the opening credits exaggerates the trope: moments after Darrin kisses Samantha, she transforms into a black cat and back into her human form after jumping into Darrin's arms, just before the smoke comes out of the stove, revealing the rest of the cast members.
  • In the Blackadder episode "Witchsmeller Persuviant", Mistress Scott, who the villagers burned as a witch, owned a cat. Percy is particularly shocked to realise they also burned the cat. The absurd evidence against Edmund also includes the fact he owns a cat named Bubbles, which the Witchsmeller claims is short for Beelzebubbles.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer,:
  • In Charmed, the main characters are three witch sisters, and they inherited a cat, Kit, along with their powers. Eventually she was only being shown in stock footage, then disappeared; a later episode has her come back as a human, revealing that she was actually a familiar and did it so well that she's now been assigned to train more familiars for other witches. (What she did well is never explained, since she just seemed to be a normal cat.)
  • El Chavo del ocho:
    • In the episode "En la casa de la bruja" (In the house of the witch), Chavo, Chilindrina and Kiko enter Doña Clotilde's house and see the typical Haunted House with her as a crone in a cauldron. In that episode her pet Satanás (Satan in Spanish) is a white cat. Of course at the end is All Just a Dream.
    • Subverted in all other episodes as Doña Clotilde's pet Satanás is always a dog. Of course, Doña Clotilde herself is not a real witch (unless you count her spiritualist activities).
  • Mentioned and Played for Laughs in FawltyTowers, where Sybil remarks that her mother thinks it was black magic that was the result of her and Basil's marriage, to which Basil retorts "She'd know, wouldn't she? Her and that cat."
  • Grimm: Adalind is a Hexenbiest and has a pet cat, which comes in handy when she wants to curse Juliette, as she's a vet.
  • Horrible Histories: In the 'Witchfinders Direct' advert, the entire witchcraft trial consists of finding a warty old woman and asking her if she has a cat. When she says "Yes", she is immediately declared a witch and burned at the stake.
  • Die Liewe Heksie: This South African puppet-based childrens' TV show has Livinia; a witch with two cats. There is Mattewis, the kitten/cat whose function is to be a timid little kittie who miouws a lot and is the indispensable companion to a working witch. Then there is Karel Kat, her sophisticated friend, a sort of Non-Human Sidekick, who is essentially an anthropomorphic cat who dresses smartly, drives a smart car, and flies a helicopter. Karel and Mattewis are never really seen interacting.
  • Probe's "Black Cats Don't Walk Under Ladders (Do They?)": Sabrina Stillwater, who claims to be a witch, owns a black cat named Dragon.
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Sabrina has Salem Saberhagen, a warlock punished for trying to take over the world with a sentence of one hundred years as a black cat. Technically, he belongs to Aunt Hilda, one of his followers, who was punished with having to take care of him.
    • The trope is also exaggerated in the episode "Cat Showdown", when Sabrina enters Salem in a cat show, then transforms herself into a cat to expose a blackmail scheme against one of the judges, winning the cat show in the process.
  • Simon And The Witch: The witch has a cat called George, known for eating wooden items such as furniture when the witch forgets to feed him. In the first series, he runs away from home and goes on a spree of destruction of wooden items across the country. Averted with the witch's sister Tombola, who lives somewhere in Africa, thinks cats are old-fashioned and instead has a gorilla called Banana and several snakes.
  • Supernatural: Some witches have familiars, though at least one of them is a dog rather than a cat and the familiars have a human form.
  • Subverted: In Switch2012 Stella puts her boss's cat in the microwave.

    Myths & Religion 
  • Averted in African Mythology, where witches rode dogs, or in some cases, hyenas.
  • Classical Mythology: Averted (and depending on how you define it, inverted) with Hecate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft. Her sacred animal was, among other things, black dogs.
  • Norse Mythology: Freyja is the goddess of seidr, a form of magic considered exclusively feminine, and her cart is drawn by two cats. Since Norse religion was often considered tantamount to witchcraft by medieval Christians, this makes Freyja the indirect Trope Maker. As practicing seidr required (receptive) sex with men in Norse belief, most of its practitioners were women. Some men were too, though not many since to the Norse bottoming was very unmanly. Thus the association mainly stayed with women.

    Radio 
  • John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme: As seen with the page quote. Centuries ago, the Duke of Kent tried burning witches, but couldn't find any actual witches, so he changes the definition of witch to "any woman who owns a cat". Then when he couldn't even manage that, starts forcibly giving any woman he finds ugly a cat, at which point...
  • Our Miss Brooks: In "Halloween Party", Mr. Boynton observes that the two figures most associated with Halloween are witches and black cats. Miss Brooks is offended when Mr. Boynton, Stretch Snodgrass, and Walter Denton all think that she'd be perfect dressed as a witch for the party. Miss Brooks eventually gives in...
    Miss Brooks: Connie Brooks rides tonight!

    Tabletop Games 
  • The Dark Eye: Most witches have some type of Familiar, but only one sisterhood of witches is known for having cats.
  • In Dungeons & Dragons, Player Characters who can cast Arcane Spells (like Wizards) can summon familiars, and cats are one of the available choices. (Not the only choice, however, and in some editions, the caster had no control over what animal he got.)
  • GURPS Thaumatology: Alchemical Baroque: The trope is played with. Cats in the setting are strictly speaking entirely natural creatures, albeit odd ones who often have a sense for the supernatural, and some of them are notably intelligent and can talk. Some of these hang around witches, leading to talk of "familiars", but in fact, they do this purely for the sake of intelligent conversation with people who aren't fazed by them, though they may do their witch friends odd favors.
  • Pathfinder: Witch is the only class to have to have a familiar (ignoring a few scattered archetypes), although it doesn't have to be a cat (witches renew their magic spells by communing with their familiar, and other classes either don't get the ability by default or can choose to bind themselves to an item instead).

    Theatre 
  • Bell Book And Candle: In the original play (and the film adaptation), Gillian Holroyd's familiar is a cat named Pyewacket,note  though at least one other witch has a non-feline familiar.
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats: A line in the "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" goes "Can you ride on a broomstick, to places far distant?" referring to cats being associated with witches.
  • Macbeth: One of the witches has a cat named Graymalkin. In some versions, one of the witches is called Graymalkin, instead.

    Video Games 
  • In BlazBlue, Nine the Phantom/Konoe Mercury is a witch (both figuratively and literally) and her husband's Jubei's a cat beastkin. Now do the math.
  • The twin witches of Brain Dead 13 each have a black cat in their room, which is very obvious.
  • In Bubble Witch Saga, the titular Cute Witch, Stella has two cat familiars named Nero and Violet who have opposite personalities.
  • The Student Witch enemy in the Castlevania series will turn into a cat and run away when defeated. In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, absorbing her soul even lets you throw a cat of your own.
    • The full-grown Witch enemies in the same games often also has a cat that rides on her broomstick. She also turns into a cat, still wearing her hat, with her own cat now riding on her hindquarters as a kitten.
  • The Witch subclass in Dungeon Fighter Online picks up Shadow Cat Pluto among her elemental familiars, and all members of the base Female Mage class produce an image of Pluto for one core attack. (Among the lore fallen by the wayside in one game revamp or another is that making the familiar pact was a part of the questline to becoming a Witch and that the base Mage spell actually conjures a momentary knockoff of Pluto out of the caster's mana.)
  • Natsume, the resident fortune-teller and most prominent magician of Ensemble Stars!, has two pet cats.
  • In Galaxy Angel II, Kahlua Marjoram, the Rune Angel Wing's resident mage, has a familiar named Mimolette, who looks like a floating black cat head.
  • Invoked with Anna of Granblue Fantasy. While she has indeed the appearance and abilities of a witch, her stuffed toy resembles that of a cat.
  • Exaggerated with Keke from the Kirby series. She is a Cat Girl witch enemy who flies around on a broom and gives Kirby the Cleaning ability. Her name is a Shout-Out to Kiki of Kiki's Delivery Service.
  • In Minecraft, all swamp witch huts will also spawn with one black cat inside (which you can tame and make your own, if you so choose).
  • In Neverwinter Nights, Wizards and Sorcerers can choose to have a cat as Familiar. Though in this case, it's more a Panthera Awesome, complementing the master's magical powers with brute force.
  • Bomamba in NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams has a whole swarm of black cats. They're the source of her magic power.
  • In Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney, Espella Cantabella owns a black cat named Eve, adding weight to the claims that she is a witch, specifically the Great Witch Bezella.
  • In the Puyo Puyo series, Ms. Accord is the magic teacher of Primp School and wears a heavily modernized robe and hat. She owns what she claims to be a cat puppet named Popoi.
  • The sorcerologist Tessa from Red Earth owns four cats, two of whom (Al and Ivan) actually aid her in battle from time to time. The catch is that Tessa owns several other pets, such as a bird (Hato), a frog (Kaeru), and a dragon spirit which doubles as her cape (Manot).
  • In The Sims 3, witches (which can be male) get bonuses from having a familiar nearby. Nearly any small animal can be a familiar, but the only major animals that can be familiars are cats, not dogs or horses.
  • Soul At Stake: Gran "The Witch" has a black cat appear on her back whenever she turns a gambler into a cat.
  • In The Witch's House, a black cat guides the protagonist and helps her escape. Though it is revealed in the third ending to be the Big Bad in a sense, as it is currently possessed by the demon who gave the witch her powers in the first place.
  • In World of Warcraft, players can purchase a Feline Familiar during Hallow's End events in October. The Feline Familiar wears its own witch hat, has green glowing eyes, and rides a broomstick whenever the player mounts up.
  • Yes, Your Grace: When Ivo starts his Witch Hunt, one of his criteria to tell if someone is a witch is ownership of pets, with cats among the examples.

    Webcomics 
  • Rose and Roxy Lalonde of Homestuck both love cats and are wizard Fangirls.
  • Subverted in Wilde Life: of the three witches we've met so far, two don't seem to have any pets, while Barbara Yaga has two dogs (whom she occasionally transforms into human children).

    Web Original 
  • Whateley Universe:
    • Elyzia Grimes is a powerful witch and a member of Whateley Academy's Magical Arts Department. She even looks like a witch, since she's described as looking uncomfortably like what Morticia Addams would look like in real life. Her familiar is a solid black cat named Merlin. Fortunately, she has a sense of humor about the whole thing. (Not all familiars in this world are cats: Foxfire has a fox kit for a familiar.)
    • Likewise, Gateway's friend Rythax may not be technically her familiar for all that he was the first creature she ever managed to summon, but he's definitely a cat. Of the occasionally-giant-winged-black-panther variety.
    • On the other hand, Josie Gilman's "familiar", Schrodinger, only looks like a black cat much of the time — he is actually a Shoggoth who somehow bonded with Josie.

    Western Animation 
  • One episode of Beetlejuice dealt with a neighborhood witch taking Lydia's black cat, forcing Lydia and Beetlejuice to crash a witches' Halloween party to retrieve the animal.
  • DuckTales (1987): The witch in "Home Sweet Homer" has a black cat. Recurring witch villain Magica DeSpell, on the other hand, has a raven as familiar.
  • Episode "Halloweek!" of Eek! The Cat shows an incredibly Hot Witch with a pet Jamaican cat.
  • The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy travels back in time to get a picture of the Dimmsdale's founder, all the while evading the local witch hunter Alden Bitterroot. As he looks for a witch that's disrupting Cosmo and Wanda's magic, he discovers that Alden Bitterroot is a witch, as he owns a cat, and he floats off the ground.
  • Headmistress Crone in Gravedale High has an undead green cat named Clawford. Crone is never shown using magic but her name and looks imply that she is a witch-monster creature.
  • The Owl House:
    • Eda Clawthorne roommate King is a small, black-furred demon that looks somewhat like a cat, but acts more like a dog and is often referred to as such.
    • Amity Blight eventually gets a white cat palisman named Ghost.
  • In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Jet's First Halloween," Sunspot dresses up as a cat to go with Jet's witch costume.
  • In one episode of The Real Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters discovers a cat familiar that has been separated from its witch. Before they can find its owner, Slimer starts to unintentionally make good use of its powers, causing them a lot of trouble.
  • Sabrina: The Animated Series. Like the live-action series, the younger Sabrina and her family own a wise-talking black cat who was once a powerful wizard. Here, however, he can be more anthropomorphic and actually has some magic powers himself, though they're far weaker than he had as a human. In the spin-off, Sabrina's Secret Life, Sabrina's Alpha Bitch witch rival, Cassandra, owns a white rabbit who may also have once been human. This is inverted in the Filmation series. As in the comics, Salem is an orange marmalade.
  • Averted in The Smurfs (1981), the two witches Chlorhydris and Hogatha have birds; a toucan and a vulture respectively. Played straight with the warlock Gargamel and his cat Azrael. Also averted with Gargamel's mother, a witch that actually hates cats.
  • In one Tom and Jerry short, Tom answers an ad to be a companion for what turns out to be a witch.

    Real Life 
  • Practitioners of Wicca and other forms of Neo-Paganism do seem to favor cats above all other pets. Of course, this trope might be partially responsible — if you grow up associating witches with cats due to media, then when you become a witch, it might seem only natural to get a cat yourself. Or perhaps the kind of people who are more likely to find Wicca an attractive choice for a religion are also the kind of people who are more likely to find a cat a more attractive choice for a pet.

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Bomamba

A witch Nightmaren who fights on top of a tiltable table. Fights by firing blasts, and using her cat familiars as rocket projectiles.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (6 votes)

Example of:

Main / AllWitchesHaveCats

Media sources:

Report