How the Cat destroyed the Rats

Once upon a time there was an old woman who was very much troubled by the large number of rats in her house. The rats chewed the mats, the clothes, the baskets. They gnawed at everything. They even ate her food. At last the old woman could bear it no longer.

“I shall leave this house,” she said to herself. She moved to a lonely plain several miles away from the village, but the rats followed her there.

One day the old woman was sitting beside her hut, which she had made for herself in the lonely plain, when suddenly she saw an enormous cock jumping and running towards her. The nearer the cock came to the old woman the more she became afraid, for she had never before seen such a large fowl.

“Good-day, old woman,” said the cock and the old woman returned his greeting.

“Why are you living alone in this plain?” the cock asked her.

She told him about her trouble with the rats, first in her house in the village and then out in the lonely plain.

“I can help you,” said the cock.

“Ah, yes, but what reward do you want?” asked the old woman.

“Just a handful of corn every hour.”

Instead of giving the cock a handful of corn every hour, the old woman was foolish enough to fill a large basket with corn and put it outside her hut.

As soon as the old woman had gone inside the hut, the cock ate all the corn and then continued on his way.

When the old woman discovered that the corn and the cock were gone and nothing had been done about the rats, she was very angry; but there was nothing she could do. She sat down on the ground outside her hut once again. Then she saw coming towards her a very small cat. It was no bigger than a rat.

“Good-day, little cat,” said the old woman, and the cat returned the greeting.

The old woman told the cat about her trouble with the rats, first in her house in the village and then out in the lonely plain.

“I can help you,” said the cat.

“Yes, but what reward do you want?” asked the old woman.

“I want nothing unless I first get rid of the rats.”

“Now go to the market,” said the cat to the old woman, “and buy some locust bean cakes which you must grind. Then cover my whole body with the ground beans.”

Off to market went the old woman, where she bought the locust bean cakes. Returning to her hut, she ground the cakes to a powder and covered every inch of the cat’s body with the ground-up cakes. The cat crept quietly up to the rats’ hole, lay down on the ground and pretended to be dead.

In the evening, when the rats were beginning to come out from their hole, they saw the cat looking as if he were dead. They ran off to tell the King of Rats.

“We must celebrate the death of the cat,” declared the King of Rats. He commanded all the rats to join him for dancing and drumming.

They were all dancing, singing and beating their drums around the cat that night, when suddenly he sprang up. He jumped on the head of the King of Rats and ate him up. Then the cat, small as he was, turned and attacked all the other rats. Quickly, he ate them all up too. Yet there was no change in his shape, for he was a magic cat.

The old woman was at last freed of her troubles.

“Thank you, good cat,” she said. “Now what reward shall I give you?”

“My reward is inside me,” the cat replied. “My reward has been your rats.”