Here’s another creature I come across often in anime and manga. I didn’t know werecats were a thing- you know, an actual folklore. I just though it was something people made up. If you’ve ever watched anime, you’d know they love putting cat ears on characters, especially females.
The word “werecat” was not coined until the late 19th century, so it wasn’t directly used in legends from earlier eras, only by later folklorists’ commentary.
In the 19th century, an occultist said that material cat and dog transformations could be produced by manipulating the “ethereal fluid” that human bodies are supposedly floating in. A witch-hunting manual said that witches can turn into cats, but that their transformations are illusions created by demons. Another occultist claimed that werecats called “cat shifters” exist as part of a “shifter subculture” or underground New Age religion based on lycanthropy and related beliefs.
