Cait Sidhe
Legacy Name: Cait Sidhe

The myths surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish Folklore, but a few myths originate in Irish folklore as well.

This comes from the root words "Cait", which meant "Cat" in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and Sidhe, which is the word for faery folk or other otherworldly beings.

The 'cat as large as a dog with a white spot on its breast' version of the Cait Sidhe is actually not a myth, but is actually a rare breed of cat, known in modern times as the Kellas Cat.

The Kellas Cat is a small black feline, although slightly larger than the common domestic cat. Once thought to be a mythological wild cat, with its few sightings dismissed as hoaxes, a specimen was shot and killed in 1984 by a gamekeeper named Ronnie Douglas and found to be a hybrid between wild and domestic sub-species of Felis silvestris. The specimen was named by cryptozoologist Karl Shuker after the village of Kellas in Moray, where it was first found.

The Kellas cat is described as being slim and muscular, over 65 cm (25 inches) long, with powerful and long hind legs and a tail that can grow to be around 30 cm (12 inches) long. The coat is short and pure black, the chest deep, the hind quarters powerful, but the most striking feature was the head. The animal looked in profile like a hybrid between a cat and a rabbit. The skull was long, the brow sloping down into a pronounced Roman nose, the cranium was flat and broad, the ears large and pricked with a leathery appearance.

The jutting upper jaw overshot the lower jaw, the canine teeth were very long, the lower angled to fit into grooves in the upper jaw the upper teeth protruding below the lower jaw. The cheek bones were high and broad, giving the creature an almost oriental appearance. A specimen is kept in a museum in Elgin.