In a farm in Mazmela, a village in the depths of Gipuzkoa, a woman was spinning until dawn. Since it was winter and it was cold enough, she was working by the fireplace in the kitchen. One night, our spinner, absorbed in her work, was terrified when she realized that a big black cat was staring at her, standing in the middle of the living room.
The spinner and the black cat
At the time, the woman could react, terrified by fear. But the cat not moving in the least, motionless and even seeming to challenge her, the spinner tried to make him leave:
- Get out! Get the hell out of here! she shouted at him.
The cat turned around and quietly disappeared, losing himself in the darkness passing through a corner of the kitchen. After this incident, the spinner could not continue working and went to bed, her heart pounding. The next night, still focused on her work, she again noticed that the same black cat had settled down in the same place as the day before, looking at the woman with a smirk. She jumped again and in the same way, tried to scare the animal away by stamping her foot on the ground.
- Get the hell out! get the hell out of it! She shouted at him again but this time the cat didn't move. get the hell out of it! get the hell out of it! she repeated even louder. The animal showed no intention of moving, gazing defiantly at our spinner and shaking himself in a way that looked like he was laughing grimly.
The woman ran to the bedroom, shaking with fear, and got into bed fully dressed. Her husband woke up with a start and, seeing his clothed wife near him, he could not hide his surprise.
- What's happening to you, you've probably seen the devil? he asked her.
- Poor of me, if it was not the devil, what I saw is undoubtedly a friend of this one! his wife replied, suffocating.
She then told her husband, her misadventure with the big black cat, as he had been able to enter the kitchen twice consecutively without making the slightest noise, how he was staring at her. The husband frowned, very concerned, went to the kitchen to realize himself even if the animal was still there or if it had left. Back in the bedroom, he suggested to his wife:
- Tomorrow you go to bed after supper, I'll stay to go to the kitchen with your clothes on your back.
They did so. When supper was over, the man disguised himself in his wife's clothes as she went to bed. At dawn, when the man, who could not get away, pretending to work by the fireside, noticed out of the corner of his eye that a huge black cat was approaching him. The animal stood in front of the false spinner, looking at her very strangely, very surprised to see that that evening she had a big mustache.
Unable to contain his curiosity, the cat asked the false spinner:
- How is it that a man is running?
And he answered:
- How is it that a cat speaks?
Then the man resolutely took the brand of the hearth and struck a violent blow on the cat, killing him instantly. When he saw that the animal was dead, and indeed dead, he took it by the tail and threw it out the window towards the garden. The man lay down, told his wife what had happened and they both slept peacefully. But the next morning they had an unpleasant surprise when they got up because in the garden, instead of finding a cat, they saw an old woman dressed in red. It was a neighbor, no doubt a witch, who in the evening would do her misdeeds transformed into a black cat.
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