Agents of Fortune

Superstitious beliefs persist that cats, and especially black ones, can bring both good and bad fortune - a belief that is often based on geography and ownership.

As Moncrif, the first naturalist to rehabilitate the cat, wrote in his History of Cats (1727): "the color black works very well against cats in unsophisticated minds; it heightens the fire of their eyes, which is enough to make people believe they are witches at the very least."

Black cats were said to be in league with the devil and as a result were often sacrificed. Later, the unfortunate black cat became a portent of good luck in Britain when it crossed your path: this was based upon the idea that evil had passed you by unharmed. In North America this is reversed on the basis that the black cat is an evil spirit: its mere presence is dangerous.

The cat's legendary introduction to Japan is said to have occurred on the tenth day of the fifth month of the year 999, when a Chinese mandarin presented the emperor, Ichijo, with a white female cat.

The birth, shortly after, of a litter of five kittens in the imperial palace of Kyoto was a harbinger of a benign future for the cat in Japan. Today, the image of a cat with one paw raised in a beckoning movement is a

Japanese symbol of good luck and prosperity. It is known as the Maneki-neko, or Beckoning Cat. The legend began when some samurai followed a beckoning cat to a shrine, where they took shelter from a storm.

They spread the fame of the shrine, and people brought their cats to be buried there and prayed for their feline souls and for luck in their own lives. The national cat of Japan, the Japanese Bobtail is also associated with fortune.

It has been adopted by sailors, because its naturally occurring bobtail resembles the royal family's emblem - the chrysanthemum - and it is used as a talisman to ward off sea storms.