Salem's name may not be terribly original for a black cat, but it is sort of historic. I was thinking of naming her Orion, but when I first picked up this tiny, 4 week old ball of fluff, I realized she did not have a speck of white on her. It reminded me of this "fact" I had recently read about black cats during medieval times. Apparently, black cats were considered witches, familiars or just evil and killed in mass number during the this time period. But, if the cat had a speck of white, it was considered to be touched by God and was spared. This caused an unintentional selective breeding and now supposedly 90% of the black cats of today have some sort of white mark on them. I have no clue of this is really true or not, but I like the idea that one of Salem's ancestors escaped the killing to pass of their genes.