George Joy's Guide to Faerytale Creatures, No 6: The Kit's Coty Cat

Running from the Pilgrim's Way up onto the North Downs near Aylesford, Kent, is a path lined with, and covered by, trees.  The path climbs steeply towards Kit's Coty village and past the ancient monument that lends the village its name.  The group of four stones (three standing on the ground in an open square with a fourth supported by them) can be accessed through a gap in the foliage.  Now fenced off, these stones were a popular nineteenth century spot for graffiti.

Many legends surround these stones but only one is relevant for this collection and that is the cat local people say guards the entrance to the field Kit's Coty House stands in.  And whether real or an apparition, the stories surrounding it are fascinating.

The large cat, most resembling a lioness, is said by most to be the ghost of the pet of the local King Catigern, whose tomb the stones are thought to be.  The legend runs that Catigern was defeated by the Jutish King Horsa in personal combat during a larger battle in 455AD.  His cat, probably bred from lions imported by the Romans, appears at night and stands guard over her master's tomb, hoping to avenge his death.  It seeks Jutish blood in its victims and slakes its thirst from it.  It is said that when enough is drunk, Catigern will return with his troops and reclaim his land.  Until then the cat keeps guard and watches over the ghostly re-enactments of the battle believed to take place in the field inhabited by Kit's Coty House.

This story is, of course, almost certainly complete rubbish and based on a misunderstanding of the tomb's age.  It is, in fact, much older than the 5th century and is the remains of a Neolithic long barrow such as that seen in West Kennet, and dates to 3-4000BC.  Likely the cat does connect with the Roman era, having been transported for sport in British amphitheatres, and escaped to find itself on the North Downs, its spirit lingering on, pining, perhaps, for its African home. 

A less popular suggestion connects the cat (or a series of related cats) with a handful of similar murders around the local villages and in Maidstone.  As a collection they are too far spaced to have been the committed by the same person but, intrepid researchers claim, they were all unsolved and suspected to have been attacks too ferocious for a human but not a beast. 

Connected with this theory is some debate over whether the Kit's Coty cat is a real, living, beast with a bloodline running back at least 150 years or a ghost.  The former would seem ridiculous as there would surely be too many of these great cats to go unnoticed.  Yet there are those who believe a community of large cats are out there and go searching for them often.  No tracks have ever been found and the idea of a ghost cat therefore resonates, whether a murderer, an avenger or a seeker of a way home. 

Whatever the truth, it is certain that, many people have seen a large cat sitting up straight in the small gap that leads to Kit's Coty House.