Aha, I have found it in "The Golden Bough", which takes it back to 1890. It doesn't contain all elements of the story though - it doesn't have a priest calling

Aha, I have found it in "The Golden Bough", which takes it back to 1890. It doesn't contain all elements of the story though - it doesn't have a priest calling for cats to be exterminated. Rather, it suggests that patterns of behavior similar to druid sacrifices persisted under christianity, and were there re-interpreted as driving out witches in cat form.