@Sheril Alright, I'm gonna look into this. It just...strikes me as a folk interpretation, and the article has to go back and say that they got the wrong time period for witch persecution. This is a tell that makes medievalists very irritable. (I'm thinking specifically of linking the Dark Ages to witch persecution, which really was more of a Renaissance/ Reformation thing. Such. A. Tired. Trope.) It just sounds debunkable. :)

I'm going to get to look at cat persecutions.