The Girl and the Black Cat of Tienen

On Wulmerse Steenweg in Tienen lived a woman with her two children: a daughter and a younger sister. The youngest child, the girl, possessed a peculiar gift or curse. Each evening, when she lay in bed to sleep, she would cry out: "Mama, why does that big cat always sit at the foot of our bed?"

The mother always answered the same: "But child, I see no black cat." Even the girl’s sister, though older and perhaps wiser, could not see the creature. Only the small girl could see the animal, night after night. The cat was black as the night itself, large and full-grown. The girl spoke of it without fear, but with wonder. Yet her mother grew increasingly uneasy. She sensed that something unnatural was occurring within their home.

Eventually the mother could no longer contain her fear. She made a drastic decision. She gave the girl a staff and spoke: "If you see that cat again, give it a good blow with this staff. Perhaps the thing will vanish for good." The girl, still young and inexperienced in the ways of the supernatural, obeyed her mother. That night she saw the cat again. With all her childish strength, she swung and struck the creature.

The next day something strange occurred. The girl’s aunt – her mother’s sister – came to visit. The aunt walked rather stiffly, however, and complained of severe pain in her back. The pain had come suddenly, she said, without any clear cause. The woman was known in the village, a woman with large, piercing black eyes that seemed to burn into those who met her gaze. The mother felt a chill run through her. She understood what had happened: the cat had been no ordinary animal, but a spirit-form, a familiar of her aunt. By striking the beast, the girl had wounded the witch herself.

Overwhelmed by fear and guilt, the mother sought help. She brought the girl to the priests of the local parish. She explained to them the appearance of the cat, the blow with which the creature had been struck, and the arrival of her aunt with sudden back pain. The priests listened gravely. They declared that the girl had likely been struck by the "evil hand" – a curse. They gave the mother a holy object, a small item that had been blessed by priests.

The mother hung the blessed item above the girl’s door. The priest had said this would prevent the witch from opening the door. Yet in the nights that followed, the girl dreamed repeatedly of spinning mills and animals driven by shadows. Night after night the terror returned in dreams. Years passed and the girl grew to adulthood. But at the age of twenty-eight, still young and in the bloom of her life, the girl began to waste away. She slowly bled out, as if her life force were being drained from her body. No doctor could help, no remedy brought relief. The girl died an early and mysterious death.

After that, the witch turned her wrath upon the girl’s godfather – her father’s brother. That man was afflicted with a torment that no one could explain. Pain pursued him day and night. Eventually, in an attempt to free him from his suffering, his leg had to be amputated. But even that brought no deliverance. The curse of the witch with the black eyes seemed inexorable.