Here are a few of the juiciest snippets:

• Ancient Egypt: cats weren’t just pets, they were divine; Bastet began life as a fierce lioness warrior-goddess, then mellowed into the gentle, domestic-cat protector of hearth and home. Killing one (even by accident) could earn you a one-way trip to the afterlife, permanently.

• Celtic Lands: the fairy-cat, or Cat Sidhe, was rumoured to prowl the Scottish Highlands; it could steal a person’s soul with a single glance, but if you treated it kindly (offering milk), it might return any purloined spirits come dawn.

• Mesopotamia: while lions got most of the press, tame cats served as grain-store guardians; farmers believed keeping a cat close would ward off mice and, by extension, ensure the gods’ favour upon the harvest.

• Slavic Folklore: in some villages, a cat’s yawn was thought to summon storms; travellers would beg a friendly feline to stay awake through the night, lest thunder and lightning chase them from the road.

Cats: still inscrutable, still indispensable, still ruling our homes and our myths.