Monsters Myths and Manias

Weird Felines: Talking Cats, the Cat Organ and the Cat Orchestra

In this week's episode, a brief history of talking cats, cat organs and cat orchestras...
Sources 
For talking cats see the following:
Hamilton Daily News, 16 February 1912
Nelson Leader, 3 June 1932
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 12 July 1946
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 21 September 1946
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 20 June 1947
For the cat organ and cat orchestras see the following:
GH Wilson, The Eccentric Mirror (1807)
For more on learned pigs and other odd animal stories see Jan Bondeson, The Cat Orchestra and the Elephant Butler: The Strange History of Amazing Animals (The History Press, 2006)
Robert J. Richards, ‘Rhapsodies on a Cat-Piano, or Johann Christian Reil and the Foundations of Romantic Psychiatry’, Critical Enquiry, Spring 1998, pp.700-701

Needle Spiking - A Hysterical History

Panic about maniacs lurking in the shadows ready to jab innocent girls with syringes dripping with evil drugs is nothing new. Similar episodes have been occurring for over a century. In this week's Monsters, Myths and Manias we uncover the hidden history of needle spiking and explain why the maniac with the syringe is a phantom of our imagination.
For a full history of needle spiking and other phantom attacker panics, see my book (co-authored with Robert Bartholomew): https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-4272-1 

Yorkshire Serial Killer Witch’s Chicken Lays Doomsday Egg

The bizarre story of Mary Bateman, witch, serial killer and psychopath and how she made a fortune from a chicken who laid eggs that predicted the end of the world...
Sources
Arthur Vincent, Lives of twelve bad women; illustrations and reviews of feminine turpitude set forth by impartial hands, (London: T.F. Unwin,1897); E. Baines, Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch: Traced from the Earliest Thefts of Her Infancy, Etc Till Her Execution on the 20th of March, 1809 (leeds: Davis and co, 1811
Owen Davies, Popular Magic: Cunning-Folk in English History, (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007)
Globe 27 March 1809
William Knipe, Criminal chronology of York castle; with a register of criminals capitally convicted and executed at the County assizes, commencing March 1st, 1379, to the present time, (York: C.L. Burdekin, 1867)
Summer Strevans, The Yorkshire Witch, (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2017) 

The Headless Bear from Hell: England's Forgotten Phantom

This episode tells the story of one of the strangest entities ever to haunt this land - the demonic headless bear from hell. This strange monster is nowadays forgotten, but he left odd tracks in the realms of demonology, the works of William Shakespeare and also in the language we speak.
A monstrous headless bear, a flaming demonic snail, levitation and a possessed woman rolled around the house like a human hula hoop. And that’s just the beginning...
SOURCES:
A True and Most Dreadful Discourse (1584 and 1614) is easy to find online, or see Joseph Laycock’s excellent Penguin Book of Exorcisms for the full text in a readable format
Richard David Macey, Fake News and News Anxiety in Early Modern England (2018), PhD thesis, Loyola University Chicago
Gary Bills-Geddes, ‘Ghost bear in a time of war at Worcester Cathedral, Worcester News, 25th October 2019 Available at: https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/17992749.ghost-bear-time-war-worcester-cathedral/ I’ve slightly modernised spelling and punctuation
https://www.mysteriesofmercia.com/post/edgar-tower-it-s-spectral-bear