Tagheirm ( Gaelic. Taghairm ) - in Scottish folklore, an occult ritual consisting in frying black cats with the goal of calling a huge black cat, nicknamed "Big Ears", which will give a true answer to any questions and fulfill any tormentor’s desire.
Gustav Meyrink describes the ritual in his novel “The Angel of the Western Window ”:
... I had a cart with fifty black cats ... I lit a fire and pronounced ritual curses on the full moon ... I pulled out the first cat from the cage, put it on a spit and proceeded to the tegeyrm. Slowly turning the spit, I was preparing infernal roast, and a terrible cat screech tore my eardrums for half an hour, but it seemed to me that many months had passed, time turned into an intolerable torture for me. But this horror had to be repeated forty-nine more times! .. Anticipating their fate, the cats sitting in the cage also howled, and their cries merged into such a nightmarish choir that I felt like demons of madness sleeping in a secluded corner of everyone’s brain they have awakened and are now tearing my soul to shreds ... the meaning of tageirma is to expel these demons, because they are the hidden roots of fear and pain - and there are fifty of them! .. Two nights and one day lasted tegeyrm, I stopped , forgot how to feel the passage of time around, as far as the eye could see - scorched empty s, even Heather could not resist such a nightmare - blackened and wilted ...
Descriptions of the ritual are often found in other literary sources, in particular, “ Lady of the Lake ” Walter Scott . The mythological black cat is nothing other than Cat Shi ( Gaelic Cat Sìth ) - presumably a witch appearance. It is believed that the word also means "The calling of the devil and the fulfillment of the most secret desires."
It is believed that the last such ceremony was held in March 1824 , which was brought to the attention of the public in English. London Literary Gazette .