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 The Cait Sith of Scotland is a large black cat with dark green eyes, long ears and a white spot on her chest. If a person encountered the Cait Sith, they would hear a prophecy from Her. As a being from the Otherworld, She watches humans and reports on what She sees. In addition, the Cait Sith guards the secrets of the Otherworld. 

People should be wary of the Cait Sith for a number of reasons. First and foremost, She steals people’s souls from their bodies. In Scotland when a person died, the family would guard the body in a Feille Fadalach (late wake). The first thing, they did was to douse all the fires. Afterwards, they lit a fire far away from the body to entice the Cait Sith to its warmth. Catnip was also spread around there as well. To distract the Cait Sith, people played music, held wrestling matches, and told riddles.

Animal spirits are the collective consciousness and wisdom of their species.  When you call upon Wolf, you are invoking the power, knowledge, and experiences of all wolves living and who have gone on before.  When you call on the energies of an animal, you receive the totality of the species for guidance. 

A simple way to invite an animal in your life is to visualize and then call to them.  Some people find it helpful to have a picture of the animal nearby.  Others may adorn themselves with things of the animal, and some move like the animal. Other people have carvings of animals that they will use.

Found in Africa, Stiletto Snakes (Atractaspis) are well-suited for their underground life. Burrowing through the earth, They look for a tasty Lizard. Finding one, Stiletto Snakes stab the unfortunate animal with their fangs, and then eat Him. These Snakes can kill without opening their mouths. Highly venomous, Stiletto Snakes possess huge venom sacs. Because They live underground, Stiletto Snakes are only encountered by people when they dig in their gardens.

Because of their large horizontal fangs, Stiletto Snakes can strike sideways and backwards. With a jerk of their heads, these Snakes kill by a sideways stab of their fangs. (Unlike other venomous Snakes, these Snakes stab their victims instead with their fangs.) The stabbing injects the venom, earning these Snakes the name “stiletto”. Although these Snakes are venomous, They are not considered to be Vipers. Causing much taxonomic confusion among scientists because of their unusual fangs, Stiletto Snakes have been placed in their own family for the time being.

Since prehistory, people have desired more intimate connection with animals.  Cave paintings in France and animals carved into the landscape in Peru demonstrate the depth of feeling and intimacy towards our animal relations. Study religious symbols, and you get a glimpse of how close humans’ relationship to animals is.  Moslems call camels, “God’s Gift,” and Incas refer to llamas as “Children of the Great Mother.”  In Christianity, Christ is called the “Lamb of God.”

The religious pantheons of many cultures feature the merging of animals and people.  In Egypt, Bast is depicted as a woman with a cat’s head, while Horus is symbolized as a hawk.  Zeus of the Greeks could transform Himself into various animals for his own purposes. The Hindu God Ganesha is depicted as an elephant, while Cernunnos, the Celtic Lord of the Animals, is shown with a stag’s horns on his head.

Before the giant squid was officially discovered in 2004, She was known as a sailor’s nightmare. For centuries, mariners whispered of a tentacled horror rising from the deeps. No one knew when a tentacle would suddenly wrap itself around a hapless ship and pull everyone down into the briny darkness.

Before Japanese oceanographers photographed a giant squid, the proof of her existence were shapeless blobs that washed up on beaches. Occasionally, people would find squid beaks in the stomachs of sperm whales. Others did notice the scars on sperm whales, where a giant squid must have grabbed them with hooked tentacles.

Animals that are rumored to exist such as the Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster are called Cryptids. These animals differ from Mythic Animals since they do exist in the here and now. (Being more supernatural, Mythic Animals have magical attributes, which Cryptids do not.) Once believed to be figments of people’s imaginations, the giant squid and coelacanth have been found in the world’s oceans. Cryptids can be thought of as elusive and unidentified animals waiting official recognition.

Cryptozoologists (scientists who study cryptids) will generally divide the animals into several descriptive groupings. There are animals, which are unlike any known species, such as the Thetis Lake Monster (British Columbia), a bipedal water creature with silver scales. Extinct animals which are often sighted like Pterosaurs or Giant Ground Sloths (Mapinguari of Brazil) are in another group. (Coelacanth was included in this group.) Animals that are not found in their usual ranges such as such as the Giant Kangaroos of North America and British Big Cats make up the third group. These would be a breeding population of kangaroos outside of Australia or pumas from North America that are consistently sighted in the United Kingdom. The last group comprises of animals who are unlike those of their own species. A notable example is the Kellas Cat, an intraspecific hybrid between the domestic cat and the Scottish wildcat.

 The grouping of Extinct Animals includes Other Hominins (e.g. Neanderthals), the Dinosaurs, the Remotely Extinct (e.g. Trilobites), and the Recently Extinct (e.g. Stellar’s Sea Cow). (Each sub-group relates to humans differently.) Many of these animals have shown how life started, and how it has continued through mass extinctions. The Recently Extinct animals demonstrate the end of life, and how they are still a part of those living today. Living in the place between reality and imagination, the Extinct Animals have taught me that life endures.

 The Remotely Extinct have survived mass extinctions. Moreover, during the Great Dying of the Permian Era, about ninety percent of all life went extinct. The Ancestors of all beings today are the ten percent who managed to survive the “Time of Hell on Earth,” which occurred 250 million years ago. As generalists, the Remotely Animals were flexible, possessed sheer stubbornness, and had good luck. From them, I learned that extinction happens, but as long as we are flexible, we can transform ourselves.