Tailrings

A horrid artificial cat made by one of the Salem witches to revenge herself against her tormentors. When the Puritans began their persecution of the witches, one whose witchname was Strmantis could foretell her own doom. Before the witch hunters took her, she caught and killed a fine neighbourhood cat and stuffed its skin with a blend of potent herbs mingled with straw. She replaced its eyes with moonstones and its claws with tiny razorsharp blades. When this creation was ready she perfomed all the necessary rites to bring it to life and spoke all but the last words of the activating spell. She reserved this until the witch-hunters broke into her home, when she screamed the words which energised the cat and sent it scrambling out of the window.

After the death of Strmantis, the cat avenged her by attacking hunters in the nearby woods. Those who saw the cat described its great moonstone eyes glowing in the dusk, the ringed tail that inspired the name of Tailrings, and the fact that no hunter was ever able to hit it with an ordinary musket ball.

Many hunters suffered from the terrible claws of Tailrings, but at last the attacks became rarer and the cat was seen no more. Probably this was because the straw which filled the catskin gradually crumbled away.