I think woodcat is another name for hare.
This is what I found:
It was considered unlucky in Scotland to have a hare on your boat and the name of the hare could not be spoken at sea. It was not an unknown practice for a dead rabbit to mysteriously appear on a rival’s boat. One anonymous Middle English poem which Seamus Heaney has translated advises anyone who meets a hare to praise it. The poet rehearses the names of the hare:
the quick-scut, the dew-flirt,
the grass-biter, the goibert
the home-late, the do-the-dirt
the starer, the wood-cat
the purblnd, the furze cat,
the skulker, the bleary-eyed
the wall-eyed, the glance-aside
the stag sprouting a suede horn
the creature living in the crn
the creature bearing all men's scorn,
the creature no one dares to name.
The negative superstitions associated with the hare may have appeared after the advent of Christianity, since hares, maybe more than other animals are associated, in Europe, with the most common shapeshifting disguise of witches.
I think woodcat is another name for hare. This is what I found:
It was considered unlucky in Scotland to have a hare on your boat and the name of the hare could not be spoken at sea. It was not an unknown practice for a dead rabbit to mysteriously appear on a rival’s boat. One anonymous Middle English poem which Seamus Heaney has translated advises anyone who meets a hare to praise it. The poet rehearses the names of the hare:
the quick-scut, the dew-flirt, the grass-biter, the goibert the home-late, the do-the-dirt
the starer, the wood-cat the purblnd, the furze cat, the skulker, the bleary-eyed the wall-eyed, the glance-aside the stag sprouting a suede horn the creature living in the crn the creature bearing all men's scorn, the creature no one dares to name.
The negative superstitions associated with the hare may have appeared after the advent of Christianity, since hares, maybe more than other animals are associated, in Europe, with the most common shapeshifting disguise of witches.