7
Felines in Folklore,
Literature, and Art
Cats have been portrayed in literature, sculpture, and paintings since very early times. Within the last two centuries the feline family has also appeared in movies, advertisements, comics, and on television. They may be shown as good or evil, depending upon the personal likes or dislikes of the creator of the product. However, cats are all around us and in a great variety of forms.
A cat can be trusted to purr when she is pleased, which is more than can be said for human beings.
—William Inge
There are a great many folklore stories and fairy tales that feature cats. Most of them portray the cat as a wise, magickal creature who helps humans in some way. The rest represent the cat as a devious, dangerous animal who is not to be trusted and is more often than not in league with the devil.
The favorable cat tales come from times when the Goddess was still given respect, for the cat was one of Her sacred creatures. You can mark the invading influence of those who actively worked to destroy belief in the Goddess by the rise of negative stories about cats.
In Japan, cats are viewed in an ambivalent light. They are considered to be wise and powerful, yet at the same time not a creature to be trusted. The Buddhists tell a story of the cat and the death of Buddha. According to this tale, only the cat and the venomous serpent did not weep when Buddha died, the cat because he was more interested in hunting mice. An older Japanese superstition says that cats, like foxes and badgers, have the ability to bewitch humans.
Cats are featured in many folktales, such as this illustration depicting one variation of Puss in Boots.
Among Japanese sailors, the cat is highly regarded, especially the mike-neko, cat of three colors, which is greatly prized. The sailors say that a cat on a ship will fend off the spirits of those who have died in the oceans who might try to cause sailing disasters. In general, the cat is believed to have control over the spirits of any who have died.
Among the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm from the peasants of Hesse, Germany (published in two volumes, one in 1812 and the other in 1815), are several stories about cats. One such tale is the Bremen Town Musicians. Four old animals, a donkey, cat, dog, and rooster, ran away together to keep from being killed because of their age. The animals decided to go to the town of Bremen and become musicians. On the road, they took refuge in a house that they discovered was the hideout of robbers. When the robbers returned, the animals ran them off through some very smart thinking.
The moral of this story is that old animals can still be useful. By the same token, old humans can still be useful through their wisdom.
Another story is called the Poor Miller’s Apprentice and the Cat. There was once an elderly miller who had three hired men, the youngest named Hans. The miller decided to retire and said he would give the mill to the apprentice who brought him the best horse. The apprentices started out together to search for the right horse, but the two older men sneaked off in the night and left the younger one sleeping in a deep cave. Hans soon met a little spotted cat, whom he helped by building a house and tending fields. In return, she promised to give him the finest horse ever if he would serve her for seven years.
At the end of seven years, the little cat told Hans to go back to the miller and promised to bring the horse to him. Hans had only his ragged old clothes to wear, but he was determined. When he reached the mill, the miller refused to let him sit at the table with the other apprentices because of his clothes. When night came, Hans had to sleep outside on hard straw.
On the third day, a coach drawn by six magnificent horses came to the inn and out stepped a beautiful princess, who was really the little cat. She gave the promised horse to the miller, who agreed that Hans should now have the mill. The princess told the miller to keep the mill, for Hans had better things awaiting him. The third story of the Brothers Grimm is probably the best known—Puss in Boots. When a certain miller died, the two older sons took the mill and the donkey, leaving the youngest son with only a cat. When they were alone, the cat began to talk. He asked the boy to make him a pair of boots so he could go out among people and help the boy. The boy made the boots, and the cat put them on. The cat became friends with a nearby king by bringing him partridges, saying they were a gift from his lord the Count. In return, the king gave the cat all the gold he could carry. The cat immediately took the gold back to the boy. This went on for some time, until the cat managed to get the king and princess and Hans together.
To help Hans in his role as Count, the cat tricked a nearby sorcerer into turning himself into a mouse, which the cat immediately ate. Thus, Hans got a magnificent castle. The miller boy and the princess were married. When the king died, the Count became king and Puss in Boots was his prime minister.
The Brothers Grimm also tell another story of the cat who accidentally lost the dog’s certificate of nobility and thus forfeited their friendship forever. This story appears to be an attempt to explain the animosity between cats and dogs. In the fables of the Greek writer Aesop, the cat is always portrayed as a trickster, one who couldn’t be trusted and who could outwit even the fox.
The Greeks also had a little-known story that tells of the Sun and the Moon creating all the animals at the beginning of the world. The Sun created the lion; not to be outdone, the Moon created the cat, who is infinitely more useful to humans.
Throughout France, there are several tales and a deep belief in what are called matagots, or magician cats. These special black cats can serve nine masters and make all of them very wealthy. Since one can never be certain which black cat is a matagot, all black cats are loved and fed well.
In the British story, Dick Whittington’s famous cat was considered to be a matagot. Although the form of this story that we know was first published in Andrew Lang’s The Blue Fairy Book in 1889, it existed in Europe as far back as the thirteenth century. The same legend of the cat who makes his master wealthy is found in the folklore of Denmark, Persia, and Italy at least a century before the story of London’s Dick Whittington.
In his book Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling wrote a cat story called The Cat Who Walked By Himself, still a favorite with children. This tale takes place in the very beginning of human civilization when, of all the wild animals in the Wet Wild Woods, the cat was the wildest of all. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him. Through cunning, the cat tricked Woman, who lived in a cave, into letting him have a permanent place by the fire and all he could eat, without being a servant. At first the cat entertained the baby and kept him from crying. When a mouse ran across the floor and the cat caught it, his place by the fire was ensured.
Although the cat now lives with humans, when the Moon is high at night, he still walks by himself, waving his wild tail, and all places are alike to him.
In one telling of the story of Noah’s ark,81 the devil got inside the ark without Noah knowing about it. He turned himself into a mouse and began to gnaw a hole in the bottom of the boat. Unable to catch the mouse or stop the damage to the boat, Noah asked the lion for help. The lion sneezed, and a pair of cats came from its nostrils.82 Immediately, the cats jumped on the devil-mouse and ate it.
The children’s nursery rhyme “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle” has an underlying sacred theme, found also in ancient traditions of Rome, Gaul, and the Celtic cultures. The original theme appears to be ancient Egyptian.83 The cat would be the cat-headed goddess Bast; the dog, the jackal-headed Anubis; and the cow, the sky and lunar goddess Nut. The fiddle represents the sistrum of Isis, while the spoon and dish symbolize ritual vessels.
Celtic tradition, not knowing the domesticated cat until it was introduced by Mediterranean traders, looked on the cat as a creature with chthonic powers. Irish legend mentions a Little Cat who guarded a treasure; any thief who tried to steal the treasure was burned to ashes when Little Cat turned into pure flame. A legend from Connaught at Clogh-magh-righ-cat (now Clough) tells of a Slender Black Cat who lived in a cave-shrine there before the coming of Christianity.84 This cat reclined on a chair of old silver and gave oracular answers to those who sought her. Like the Delphic Oracle, the Irish Cat gave scornful answers to those who tried to deceive her.
Robert Graves wrote that a cat cult once existed in Ireland and appeared to center on the Knowth burial chamber.85 In the old writings called The Proceedings of the Grand Bardic Academy, we find the tale of the great King-cat of Ireland. The King-cat, whose name was Irusan, was said to have lived in the Knowth burial chamber in County Meath at one time in the far past. The King-cat was described as being as large as a plow ox. When the chief ollave of Ireland, Seanchan Torpest, satirized this King-cat, the creature got his revenge by putting the ollave on his back and carrying him far away.
There is also an old Irish tale of a mysterious island inhabited by men with cat heads. This is probably a reference to a clan of Irish people who considered the cat to be their totem animal and wore helmets shaped like cats’ heads.
The folk tale Cinderella comes from a much older story, of which there are several cultural versions, one of which is an Italian version called Cinders-Cat. There was once a kind-hearted, beautiful girl who was mistreated by her family and forced to wear a cat skin as clothing. She was called Cinders-Cat and had to sleep on the hearth. Finally, her true beauty was discovered by a handsome, wealthy man who married her.
In the English version, called Catskin, the unwanted girl also had to wear a cat skin, sleep by the hearth, and do all the dirty servant-work. When the king hosted a ball, the girl secretly went. A handsome nobleman fell in love with her and married her.
The Danes also had a version of this story. The kindhearted but mistreated girl was thrashed for giving milk to hungry, stray cats. In spite of this, she fed the next poor cat to come to the door. After drinking the milk, the cat grew very large and pushed off its skin, which it gave to the girl to use as a cloak. Later, the cat returned with beautiful dresses for the girl. Finally, through the girl’s kindness, the cat was able to change into human shape; he was the enchanted brother of the king. The young man and the girl were married.
Even the Irish had a similar story, but instead of the mistreated girl being connected with the cat, it was the fairy godmother who was a cat.
The Norse have two myths in which cats are mentioned. When the wolf Fenris had to be bound, the gods found themselves in trouble after the great wolf easily broke the first two chains they used. Freyr’s servant Skirnir was sent to the dwarfs in Svartalfheim for a magickal chain that could not be broken. These dwarfs made an extremely light, soft fetter, smooth and pliable as a silk ribbon, called Gleipnir. They forged this indestructible fetter out of the beard of a woman, the roots of the mountains, the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird, and the sound of a cat walking.86
Another time the god Thor journeyed to Utgard, home of the Frost Giants. Accompanied by the trickster Loki, he finally came to an ice castle, home of the king Utgard-Loki. Thor received a rather cool welcome from the Giants, as he was always fighting them. Finally, Thor was challenged by Utgard-Loki to prove his strength. A huge gray cat leaped forward, and Utgard-Loki challenged the thunder god to lift it off the ground. Although the strongest of all the gods ever born, Thor was only able to lift one of the cat’s paws. The Giants ridiculed Thor for being a puny weakling. Later, Utgard-Loki admitted that the cat was really the great Midgard Serpent, called Jormungand.
Jormungand was one of the offspring of Loki and Angrboda, a Giantess, and was said to be so strong and huge that it encircled the world with its body. Cats have long been connected with snakes because of their hissing.
There is a very old Italian legend that a cat gave birth to a litter of kittens in the stable where Mary birthed her son.
Cats are featured on everything from stamps to bookplates, such as this bookplate from 1900.
Another Italian fairy tale tells about a woman who had a lot of children and very little money. One day a fairy came to the woman and told her that if she climbed a certain high mountain she would find a palace inhabited only by cats; these cats would give alms to needy people. So the woman climbed up to the palace and was met at the door by a kitten. The woman offered to help the cats in any way she could and at once set about cooking, cleaning, and making them all comfortable. Finally, she went before the King of the Cats and asked him for alms. The king questioned the other cats and found that the woman had willingly done a lot of work, so he ordered that the cats fill her apron with gold coins.
A much older Roman myth tells the story of the goddess Diana who shapeshifted into a cat to escape from the evil Typhon. Hyginus, in his Poetic Astronomy, wrote that Typhon suddenly appeared in Greece and attacked not only the land and people, but the gods themselves. The gods changed themselves into animals and fled: Mercury as an ibis, Apollo as a crane, and Diana as a cat.
Ovid records a Greek myth about the loyal servant of Princess Alcemene, who gave birth to Heracles, son of Zeus. When Alcemene was ready to give birth to her son, jealous Hera did everything she could to prevent the birth. The servant Galinthias played a trick on Hera, which drew the goddess’ attention and allowed Alcemene to give birth. Hera was so angry she turned Galinthias into a cat and banished her to the Underworld. Galinthias became a priestess of Hecate, queen of witches.
In the folk tales of Eastern Europe is a story of a lazy wife who blamed the disorder of her house and the population of destructive mice on the old cat. The husband decided to beat the cat and ordered the lazy wife to hold the animal. Although he managed to land just two blows on the cat, the wife was terribly scratched—a just punishment for her lies.
In cat stories from Russia, the cats are always very large, generous, and full of good will and cunning. Ivanovitch was a cat who used his cunning to marry a fox and thus become king over all the forest animals. The unnamed tabby tom who lived with the goddess Baba Yaga took pity on a tender-hearted girl and substituted himself in order to save the girl’s life.
Another Russian legend says that, in the beginning, a cat and a dog were given the task of guarding the gates of Paradise. The devil disguised himself as a mouse and tried to creep by them. The dog ignored this pseudo mouse and let him pass, but the cat pounced on him and threw him out again.
One of the legends about the pussy willow comes from Poland. A mother cat had a litter of kittens that her owners didn’t want, so the humans threw the baby cats into the river to drown. The mother paced the bank, crying for her little ones. The willows growing along the banks of the river were touched by the mother cat’s grief and trailed their branches in the water. The kittens caught the branches in their paws and climbed to safety. Now each spring the willow has little velvet buds, symbolic of the kittens they saved.
Tom and Jerry.
There is a Scandinavian cat tale that is also found among the folk tales in India. Once there was a strange, magickal, but greedy cat who waited until her mistress was gone from the cottage and then ate all the porridge, the bowl that held the porridge, and the ladle. When the mistress returned and commented on what a fat cat she was, the cat ate the mistress. Still hungry, the cat went out and ate a great many other animals until she burst.
A story from the 1800s tells of a fisherman who became very poor because he was sick. A cat, whom the fisherman had fed every day when the man had visited his owner, changed himself into the shape of a man so he could give the old man two gold coins. This was the cat’s way of thanking the man for being kind to him.
In the Far East there are hundreds of stories about cats taking the shape of old women, priests, courtesans, and young girls so that they can deceive their victims. In this area of the world, it is also thought that the cat gains the power of speech at a certain advanced age.
There are many Japanese paintings that show a pair of running cats. These designs are based on the story of two star-crossed lovers who were forbidden to see each other. In order to be together, they magically transformed themselves into cats and ran away.
In India the cat is considered to be a very magickal creature and a bringer of luck. One of their legends tells the tale of Patripatan, a cat so cunning and insidious that he climbed into the realm of the gods to plead for his master, the prince of the kingdom of Salangham. In Devendiren, a sky land, twenty-four million gods and forty-eight million goddesses reigned, and Patripatan enchanted them all. He especially became a favorite of the king of the gods and the most beautiful of the goddesses. Although the cat didn’t return for three hundred years, his master the prince and all the people of that kingdom didn’t age at all. When Patripatan did return, he carried in his white paws a flowering branch of the holy Parasidam.
There are also many tales of cats in the Americas. In Native American legends, Wild Cat is portrayed as the younger brother of Coyote and represents stealth. The Tiger Cat, or Cat-a-Mountain, is said to be noted for his fierceness and ingratitude. In the hunting rituals of the Zuni, the Wild Cat replaces Badger.
Ccoa, a Peruvian legendary cat, was considered to be a storm spirit; he had a huge head, with hail falling from his eyes and ears. Another South American cat-monster was Guirivulu, whose tail ended in a sharp claw; he could change himself into a giant snake and live in the water.
The feline family is not part of the native animals of Australia, but the Aboriginal tribes have a totem animal known as Wild Cat.
Cats have been immortalized in more recent literature, as well as in the folk tale,87 and have been the favorite pet companion of many writers. All three of the Brontë sisters loved cats, as did Victor Hugo, Ernest Hemingway, Colette, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and H. G. Wells.
T. S. Eliot wrote a poem called The Naming of Cats. In this poem, he tells how each cat has three names: the formal name, the family name, and a secret name known only to the cat. He also wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in 1939; the award-winning musical Cats is based on this story.
The names we humans bestow on our cats are varied and unique. I have known cats named Purry Como, Eartha Cat, Butch and Sundance (two terrors as kittens), Tuxedo (for his white shirt-front), Purrl Bailey, Muff (a white long haired Persian), Misha (a part Siamese with an air of dignity; his name is a diminutive of the Russian name Mikhail), Zorri, Beowulf and Valkyrie (two warrior kittens), Flash (he survived dogs as a kitten because he ran so fast), Finnigan (the six-toed Irish fighter), Fox and Sox (a red kitten and one with white feet), Midnight (coal black), and Chatter (a non-stop talking Siamese).
The feline family, especially domesticated cats, have been featured in innumerable paintings, including the art of the postage stamp. For some reason, the US has never seen fit to grace its stamps with a portrait of the cat. Other countries, however, have some beautiful cat stamps, about one hundred of them, in fact. In 1930 Spain issued a stamp that shows Charles Lindbergh in the upper left corner and a black cat in the lower right near the Spirit of St. Louis; the cat belonged to Lindy, who left it behind rather than risk its life. Luxembourg issued a stamp in 1966 that represented the witch’s cat of the Middle Ages. In 1967 Turkey put out a stamp with a white Angora. The following year a Polish stamp honored Puss in Boots.
Cats have also garnered their share of parts in movies, TV, and cartoons. Who could forget Pyewacket in the movie Bell, Book & Candle or Leo, the famous MGM lion? Or the cartoon smart-cat Garfield? But did you know that the first cat to be featured in a cartoon was Mr. Jack in 1899? Mr. Jack, an orange and black striped tiger in men’s clothes, was popular for more than forty years.
The early 1900s saw several cats portrayed in newspaper comic strips. The first domestic cat to appear in cartoons was Krazy Kat, who appeared in 1910 in a comic strip called The Dingbat Family. For more than thirty years, Krazy Kat was enjoyed by readers, including President Woodrow Wilson and the poet e e cummings. In 1914, the cat Kitty appeared in Polly and Her Pals. This feline was followed by Felix in an animated silent cartoon in 1919; Felix was also the star of the first “talkie” cartoon, one year before Mickey Mouse came on the scene. By 1923 Felix was put into newspapers.
During the hard times of the 1930s the cartoon Archie and Mehitabel appeared; this revolved around the friendship between an alley cat and a cockroach. Cicero’s Cat and Spooky came next. The 1934 cat comic The Pussycat Princess was created by the woman who created the chubby-cheeked Campbell Soup kids.
The Hanna-Barbera duo Tom and Jerry became popular in the 1940s and 1950s, but the role of the cat had changed. Most modern comic depictions of cats casts these creatures into a negative role. The 1945 debut of Sylvester shows us a cat who isn’t too bright and who is always defeated by a little bird. In Walt Disney’s Cinderella (1950) the cat Lucifer is cast as an absolute villain, merely for hunting mice. By 1955 Disney came out with Lady and the Tramp, which again had two villainous cats, this time Siamese. Alice in Wonderland has the Cheshire cat, while Gay Purree (featuring the voice of Judy Garland as Mewsette, Robert Goulet as Jaune Tom, and Hermione Gingold as Madame Rubens-Chatte) appeared in 1962. L. Frank Baum, who wrote the Wizard of Oz (which had the Cowardly Lion), also featured cats in his books. And who can forget Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat? The 1960s cartoon of Top Cat shows Top and his “gang” in New York City, always in trouble with Officer Dibble.
However, there have been a few modern positive roles for cats in Disney films, such as Figaro in Pinocchio (1940), The Nine Lives of Thomasina (where a cat meets the goddess Bast), the group of cats in The Aristocats (1970), and Rufus in The Rescuers (1977). Other modern and positive cat comics are Garfield (1978), Kit ‘N’ Carlyle (1980), Calvin and Hobbes (1985), and Eek the Cat on the Fox Network.
Cats have also appeared in books by Robert Heinlein and Joy Adamson (Born Free). They have had parts in such television series as Star Trek and Mission Impossible.
80Cats have hobnobbed with some of Hollywood’s elite over the years. The film industry also used cats in several movies besides Bell, Book & Candle (starring James Stewart and Kim Novak). The James Mason movie I Met a Murderer had felines in scenes, as did his films The Upturned Glass and The Seventh Veil. Ethel Barrymore’s cat appeared with her in Night Song. Other movie stars, such as Errol Flynn, Mary Martin, Natalie Wood, and Olivia de Haviland all had special friendships with cats.
A great many writers have also shared their lives with cats. Disney’s movie That Darn Cat was made from the book Undercover Cat, which featured Pancho Gordon, the black feline belonging to the mystery writers Gordon Gordon and Mildred Gordon. The French writer Colette put her ginger cat Prrou in her novel Retreat From Love, green-eyed Peronnella in Chance Acquaintances, Saha in The Cat, and La Chatte in Break of Day. Many of Mark Twain’s works mention cats, among them Letters From the Earth, The Innocents Abroad, Roughing It, and of course Tom Sawyer. Twain kept nineteen cats at his Connecticut house.
Cats have also been used to promote products. Everyone is familiar with Morris and the cat food commercials. However, the cat as salesperson goes back much further than Morris.
Black Cat cigarettes were sold in the late 1800s. Starry Gold, a French manufacturer of fountain pens, used a white cat to market its ware. I have a Tiger Tobacco tin, made in the early 1900s, which is about the size of a lunch box. In the early 1900s, a German firm made a white wine called Zeller Schwarze Katz (Black Cat wine), so named because of the black cat pictured on the barrel. In the 1930s and ’40s, the Eveready battery company used pictures of cats to symbolize their product’s durability, obviously based on the cat’s nine lives. Cats have been used to promote underwear, stove polish, cigars, sewing thread, and a variety of other products. During World Wars I and II, cats were even pictured on wartime recruiting posters.
Whatever our personal feelings toward the tribe of tiger, we seem to be unable or unwilling to live in a world that has no representations of cats.
81. Stith Thompson, The Folktale.
82. Carol Ochs, Behind the Sex of God.
83. J. C. Cooper, Symbolic & Mythological Animals.
84. This is a very interesting description of an Irish cat as the only cat known was the European wild cat, which is not totally black in color and is of a stocky build. This description of the Slender Black Cat is identical to the Egyptian sacred cats in the temples of Bast and Pasht.
85. Robert Graves, The White Goddess, says that this cat-cult existed at about the same time as New Grange.
86. Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Kevin Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths.
87. Examples can be found in The Literary Cat, edited by Jean-Claude Suares and Seymour Chwast.