The Demon Cats

 What do you do on Halloween? Go out, go trick-or-treating, watch scary films? You probably don’t go fishing, and in today’s story, we will learn exactly why going fishing on Halloween night is a bad idea. Keep listening to learn English.

[intro]

Hello my Lovely Learners, and welcome to Easy Stories in English, the podcast that will take your English from OK to Good, and from Good to Great. I am Ariel Goodbody, your host for this show. Today’s beginner-level story is called The Demon Cats. As always, the transcript and PDF are available at EasyStoriesInEnglish.com, and you can find the link to that in the description.

As I’m recording this, Halloween has just been, so what better time for a scary story? I say Halloween, but at my school where I work, we call it ‘Pumpkin Day’. Because we are a bilingual school and we follow the Chinese curriculum, we are not allowed to promote Western religious festivals. So we don’t celebrate Christmas and we don’t celebrate Halloween, but we do celebrate ‘Pumpkin Day’.

Now, I wish I could tell you what happens on Pumpkin Day, but I am recording this episode in advance, so I don’t know yet. Hmm. Maybe I’ll talk about it on the newsletter or in the next episode of the podcast.

Anyway, today’s episode is a scary Halloween story. It is an adaptation from the book Scottish Folk Tales of Coast and Sea by Tom Muir. I’ve done some other stories from that book this year on the podcast, so once again, you can expect some Scottish accents, as in accents from Scotland, the northern part of the British mainland. Hopefully you enjoy them and you are able to understand them.

OK, I’ll just explain some words that are in today’s story.

A demon is a type of monster that is in all religions. Demons usually live underground, or in hell, and they like to hurt humans. In some stories, people can summon demons, they can call the demons up from hell. Then the demons use magic for the person who summoned them. In Christianity, Satan, or the Devil, is the king of the demons. In this story, the name ‘Auld Clootie’ is used, which is a Scottish way of referring to the devil.

A fisherman is someone who catches fish. Fishermen work in boats, and they use nets to catch fish. Being a fisherman used to be very dangerous, but now fishermen use lots of machinery that makes catching fish easier.

Superstitions are beliefs that are not real, but they are very popular. You find superstitions in all cultures. For example, in the UK we have a superstition that you shouldn’t step on a crack in the road. Another superstition is that if you break a mirror, you’ll have seven years of bad luck. Or if you see a black cat, you’ll have bad luck. These days, people are less superstitious than in the past, because we can use science to show that the superstitions aren’t true.

An animal’s fur is its hair. If you have a dog or a cat with long fur, you’ll have to hoover, vacuum, a lot, to clean up all the fur.

When something goes away or stops being, it disappears. For example, some people can use magic to make themselves disappear. If you are hiding from a dangerous animal, you probably want to disappear. If you put a chocolate cake in front of me, it will quickly disappear.

Bones are hard, white things that we have inside our bodies. Bones are beneath our skin and muscles. If you hit yourself very hard, you might break a bone. It’s important to have calcium in your diet, as calcium makes your bones healthy and strong.

When someone puts a knife into something, they stab it. Getting stabbed is very dangerous, as you can quickly die from it. Julius Caesar, one of the emperors of Ancient Rome, was stabbed 23 times and died. You can also stab someone with something less sharp, like a pencil, but it will still hurt!

Scratching is attacking something with your nails, and biting is attacking something with your teeth. Cats like to scratch and bite, which can make having a cat quite dangerous! If a mosquito bites you, you will want to scratch yourself. If you bite a mosquito – well done! That’s very hard to do. They’re fast.

A priest is a man who works at a church. Priests are very important in the church. Priests read to everyone from the Bible, and they talk to people who are having religious problems.

Holy water is special water that has been blessed by a priest. Basically, the priest puts their hands over the holy water, says some special words and then the water is considered holy, or special. Holy water is used for various purposes in religion, such as baptism. If you meet a demon, you should throw holy water on them, as that usually kills them.

OK, so listen and enjoy!

The Demon Cats

Once, there was a fisherman called Murdo MacTaggart. Murdo MacTaggart lived in a small village in the west of Scotland. People who worked with the sea were very superstitious. After all, the sea could take their lives any day. So they were superstitious, because they thought that if they followed the superstitions, they might live longer.

But Murdo MacTaggart was not superstitious at all. He thought superstitions were stupid.

Murdo liked fishing at night, because many fish came out to eat at night. Most fishermen would not fish at night because of their superstitions, which meant Murdo could go and catch fish under the moon and the stars, and then bring the fish to market to sell in the morning.

One year at Halloween, Murdo went out to fish at night. People saw him leave, and said, ‘Murdo, you can’t fish on Halloween! Halloween is a night of ghosts and demons! Come to church with us where it’s safe.’

‘Ah, whisht!’ said Murdo. ‘Ghosts and demons aren’t real. I’ll go to church in the morning.’

And Murdo went to fish. But he should have listened to the people, because that night, demons were at work…

While Murdo was fishing, the weather changed. A strong wind blew, and it started to rain. Soon, the weather was too bad, and Murdo had to go back to land. He ran to a small house where the fishermen kept their things. He would sit in the small house and wait for the rain to stop. He made a small fire and got comfortable.

As Murdo listened to the wind, he heard another sound. Meeeeeeeeeeow… The door to the house suddenly opened, and twelve black cats ran inside. These were not any ordinary cats: they were huge, like demons, and their fur was as black as the night. Finally, a thirteenth cat came inside. The thirteenth cat was even bigger than the others, and its fur was red like fire. The door closed, and the thirteen cats sat around the fire.

Murdo was so scared he could not speak. The demon cats all watched him. Finally, the red cat spoke.

‘Why are we sitting in silence? Come! Let’s sing a cumha for Murdo MacTaggart.’

And then the cats began to sing. A cumha is a funeral song. The cats sang the cumha, but their singing was awful, and Murdo wanted to put his hands on his ears. Finally, the cats stopped, and they looked at Murdo.

‘Well now, Murdo,’ said the red cat. ‘We have sung you a lovely cumha, and now you must pay for it.’

‘Pay?!’ said Murdo. ‘Why should I pay? I’m not dead and it’s not my funeral! And how can I pay you, anyway?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the red cat. ‘But singing makes one very hungry…’

Murdo looked at the twelve black cats. Their eyes shone with hunger.

He looked around the house. He couldn’t see anything that he could use to pay the cats. He opened the door and looked outside. There, sitting in the rain, were a sheep and an old cow.

‘There, take that!’ he said.

Murdo pointed to the sheep and the black cats ran. They jumped on the sheep, and the poor animal disappeared into their black fur. ‘Baa baa!’ the sheep cried, but a few seconds later, the baaing stopped, and the cats moved away. There was nothing left but a pile of bones.

The cats calmly came back inside and shut the door behind them. It all happened so quickly that Murdo could only sit and watch.

‘How lovely,’ said the red cat. ‘Come! Let’s sing a cumha for Murdo MacTaggart.’

And the cats sang again. This time, they sang even worse.

Afterwards, the black cats all looked at Murdo, and the red cat spoke. ‘Well now, Murdo. We have sung you a lovely cumha, and now you must pay for it.’

Murdo opened the door and pointed to the old cow.

‘There, take that!’ he said.

This time, the cats moved even more quickly, as the cow was old and did not have much meat. One minute there was a cow eating grass, and the next minute there was only a pile of bones. Before Murdo could even move a finger, the cats were back.

Once more, the black cats all looked at Murdo, and the red cat spoke. ‘Come! Let’s sing a cumha for Murdo MacTaggart.’

And the cats sang again. This was the worst time. The cats’ singing was so bad that Murdo thought he might die from that.

Afterwards, the black cats all looked at Murdo, and the red cat spoke. ‘Well now, Murdo. We have sung you a lovely cumha, and now you must pay for it.’

Murdo looked around. This time, there was nothing to give. He thought that it would soon be his bones on the floor. But then he heard a sound outside. He looked, and saw a dog. It was a young dog that could run fast.

‘There, take that!’ he said.

The black cats ran after the dog, but the dog was faster than them. Murdo took his chance and ran. He ran towards the woods, thinking he could hide in the trees.

But soon, Murdo heard the cats running after him. They were too slow to catch the dog, and now they were hungry, and wanted him.

‘Where are you running to, Murdo?’ said the red cat. ‘Don’t you want to share a meal with your friends?’

Murdo ran into the woods, and for a minute, he disappeared into the darkness. While the cats couldn’t see him, he found a tall tree and climbed it. He had never climbed so fast in his life.

The cats looked around the dark woods, and they couldn’t find him, but then the red cat walked up to his tree.

‘He’s here!’ said the red cat. ‘He’s hiding up a tree.’

‘Don’t come up here!’ shouted Murdo. ‘I’m serious!’

But one of the black cats started to climb the tree. When it came near, Murdo pulled out his knife and stabbed the black cat in the heart. The black cat screamed and fell down dead. Then, another black cat climbed the tree, and again, Murdo stabbed it in the heart with his knife. A third cat came, and he stabbed that one in the heart, too.

‘Stop!’ said the red cat. ‘If we keep on doing this, he will kill all of us. If we can’t go to him, let’s bring him to us. Attack the tree!’

And the cats attacked the bottom of the tree. They scratched and bit the tree. Murdo understood what they were doing: if they scratched and bit the bottom of the tree enough, then the tree would fall down.

‘Help, help!’ Murdo cried.

He knew all the people would be in the church, but maybe, just maybe, someone would hear him?

In fact, just at that time the church service was ending, and people were going home. The priest came out and heard Murdo’s cries.

‘I hear a man crying for help,’ said the priest. ‘He’s in the woods.’

‘Don’t go, Father!’ said a man. ‘It is Halloween, and surely it is a demon. The demon wants you to go to the woods so it can eat you.’

‘Help!’ cried Murdo again. The tree was starting to fall down, and the cats were scratching and biting faster and faster.

‘I must go!’ said the priest, and he ran into the woods.

Just as the priest arrived, the tree started to fall, but before the cats could jump on poor old Murdo MacTaggart, the priest pulled out a bottle of holy water.

‘Begone, Satan!’ he cried.

The priest threw the holy water on the cats. The cats screamed and jumped in the air, and then stopped moving.

‘Are you alright?’ said the priest, helping Murdo off the tree.

‘Ach, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just a little scared.’

When they went to look at the cats, they found nothing but empty cat skins, with no bones inside. So the cats had in fact been demons – the demons had climbed inside the cat skins, and the big red cat had been none other than Auld Clootie, Satan himself!

‘Ach, I’ve learned my lesson,’ said Murdo. ‘I’ll never go fishing on Halloween again!’

And not only that – from that day onward, Murdo was a superstitious man. He followed all the superstitions closely, and fortunately, he never met Auld Clootie again.

THE END

Well, I hope that was a delightfully spooky story! And remember, if you listen to today’s episode, you can also watch it as a video on YouTube. Just go to ‘Easy Stories in English’ on YouTube.

Have a great day, and I’ll see you next week. Bye!