Shapeshifter Cat (Japan)
           Legend concerns a cat and is set on the island of Sado.
           An old couple had a black catto which they were much attached. They were exceedingly poor and when there hardship seemed to have no solution.
           The cat, in return for there sacrifices for it down the years, turned into a geisha, taking the name of Okesa. She thus made money for the couple though at considerable cost, for apparently she did not relish the life, which involved having sexual intercourse with her customers as well as giving them the more formal entertainment of conversation, singing and dancing. At the last of which she was particularly adept.
           One of her clients, a boatman, once caught a glimps of her in her cat form, eating. She made him promise not reviel her true idenity, but when taking a boatload of passengers to Hokkaido, he could not resist the temptation of telling them that the famous dancing geisha of Sado was really the cat belonging to the old couple, and in the circumstances it is hard to blame him.
           Immediately he had betrayed Okesa's confidence, it is said that a dense cloud appeared in the sky and from it a vast black cat appeared and snatched him from view. The passangers apparently escaped unharmed: they had, after all, only listened to the story. One can still buy dolls doing the Okesa dance. It is a story much told, depicted and danced.

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