Part 15

NOTE.--Almost the same words are sung in the music to _Macbeth_.

"One of the frauds of witchcraft," says Timbs, "is the witch pretending to transform herself into a certain animal, the favourite and most usual transformation being a _cat_; hence cats were tormented by the ignorant vulgar."

"_Rutterkin_ was a famous cat, a cat who was 'cater'-cousin to the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother of Grimalkin, and first cat in the caterie of an old woman who was tried for bewitching a daughter of the Countess of Rutland in the beginning of the sixteenth century. The monodis connects him with cats of great renown in the annals of witchcraft, a science whereto they have been allied as poor old women, one of whom, it appears, on the authority of an old pamphlet entitled 'Newes from Scotland,' etc., printed in the year 1591, 'confessed that she took a cat and christened it, etc., and that in the night following, the said cat was conveyed into the middest of the sea by all these witches sayling in their Riddles, or Cives, and so left the said cat right before the towne of Leith in Scotland. This done, there did arise such a tempest at sea as a greater hath not been seen, etc. Againe it is confessed that the said christened cat was the cause of the kinges majestie's shippe, at his coming forthe of Denmarke, had a contrarie winde to the rest of the shippes then being in his companie, which thing was most straunge and true, as the kinges majestie acknowledgeth, for when the rest of the shippes had a fair and good winde, then was the winde contrairie, and altogether against his majestie,' etc."[C]

[C] Hone's "Every-day Book," vol. i.

"In some parts black cats are said to bring good luck, and in Scarborough (Henderson's 'Folk-lore of the Northern Counties'). A few years ago, sailors' wives were in the habit of keeping one, thinking thereby to ensure the safety of their husbands at sea. This, consequently, gave black cats such a value that no one else could keep them, as they were nearly always stolen. There are various proverbs which attach equal importance to this lucky animal, as, for example:

Whenever the cat o' the house is black, The lasses o' lovers will have no lack.

"And again:

Kiss the black cat, An' 'twill make ye fat; Kiss the white ane, 'Twill make ye lean.

"In Scotland there is a children's rhyme upon the purring of the cat:

Dirdum drum, Three threads and a thrum; Thrum gray, thrum gray!

"In Devonshire and Wiltshire it is believed that a May cat--or, in other words, a cat born in the month of May--will never catch any rats or mice, but, contrary to the wont of cats, will bring into the house snakes, and slow-worms, and other disagreeable reptiles. In Huntingdonshire it is a common saying that 'a May kitten makes a dirty cat.' If a cat should leap over a corpse, it is said to portend misfortune. Gough, in his 'Sepulchral Monuments,' says that in Orkney, during the time the corpse remains in the house, all the cats are locked up, and the looking-glasses covered over. In Devonshire a superstition prevails that a cat will not remain in a house with an unburied corpse; and stories are often told how, on the death of one of the inmates of a house, the cat has suddenly made its disappearance, and not returned again until after the funeral. The sneezing of the cat, says Brand ('Popular Antiquities,' 1849, vol. iii., p. 187), appears to have been considered as a lucky omen to a bride who was to be married on the succeeding day.

"'In Cornwall,' says Hunt, 'those little gatherings which come on children's eyelids, locally called "whilks," and also "warts," are cured by passing the tail of a black cat nine times over the place. If a ram cat, the cure is more certain. In Ireland it is considered highly unlucky.'"[D]

[D] Mr. T. F. Thiselton Dyer's "English Folk-lore."

Sailors are very superstitious as regards cats. If a black cat comes on board, it is a presage of disaster; if the ship's cat is more lively than ordinary, it is a sign of wind; but if the cat is accidentally drowned, then there is consternation, which does not wear off until the vessel is safe in harbour.

Lady Wilde, in her "Irish Legends," gives a cat story quite of the fairy type, and well in keeping with many of witchcraft and sorcery. "One dark, cold night, as an old woman was spinning, there came three taps at her door, and not until after the last did she open it, when a pleading voice said: 'Let me in, let me in,' and a handsome black cat, with a white breast, and two white kittens, entered. The old woman spun on, and the cats purred loudly, till the mother puss warned her that it was very late, that they wanted some milk, and that the fairies wanted her room that night to dance and sup in. The milk was given, the cats thanked her, and said they would not forget her kindness; but, ere they vanished up the chimney, they left her a great silver coin, and the fairies had their ball untroubled by the old woman's presence, for the pussy's warning was a gentle hint."

If a kitten comes to a house in the morning, it is lucky; if in the evening, it portends evil of some kind, unless it stays to prevent it.

A cat's hair is said to be indigestible, and if one is swallowed death will ensue (Northern).

Milton, in his "Astrologaster," p. 48, tells us: "That when the cat washes her face over her eares we shall have great store of raine."

Lord Westmoreland, in a poem "To a cat bore me company in confinement," says:

----Scratch but thine ear, Then boldly tell what weather's drawing near.

The cat sneezing appears to be a lucky omen to a bride.

It was a vulgar notion that cats, when hungry, would eat coals; and even to this day, in some parts there is a doubt about it. In "The Tamer Tamed, or, Woman's Pride," Izamo says to Moroso, "I'd learn to eat coals with a hungry cat"; and in "Boduca," the first daughter says, "They are cowards; eat coals like compelled cats."

"The crying of cats, ospreys, ravens, or other birds upon the tops of houses in the night time are observed by the vulgar to presignify death to the sick."--Brand.

There is also a superstition that cats will suck the breath of infants. Nothing could be more ridiculous. The formation of the cat's mouth is not well adapted for such action, the under jaw being shorter than the upper, which is one reason why it _laps_ fluids instead of drinking. Cats will creep into cradles, but for no other purpose than that of sleep, the bed and clothes being warm and soft, and of course comfortable; yet instead of doing harm, they help to keep the child's temperature more even in cold weather. Of course, if they lie on the infant, it is a different matter.

WEATHER NOTIONS.

"Signs of Foul Weather," by Dr. Erasmus Darwin. In a poem, the well-known relative of the eminent Charles Darwin describes the various natural indications of coming storms. Among the animals and birds he notes the cat:

Low o'er the grass the swallow wings; The cricket, too, how sharp he sings; Puss on the hearth, with velvet paws, Sits wiping o'er his whiskered jaws.

"In England," says Mr. T. F. Thiselton Dyer, "the superstitious still hold the cat in high esteem, and oftentimes, when observing the weather, attribute much importance to its various movements. Thus, according to some, when they sneeze it is a sign of rain; and Herrick, in his 'Hesperides,' tells us how:

True calendars as pusses eare, Wash't o're to tell what change is neare.

"It is a common notion that when a cat scratches the legs of a table, it is a prognostic of change of weather. John Swan, in his 'Speculum Mundi' (Cambridge, 1643), writing of the cat, says: 'She useth therefore to wash her face with her feet, which she licketh and moisteneth with her tongue; and it is observed by some that if she put her feet beyond the crown of her head in this kind of washing, it is a signe of rain.' Indeed, in the eyes of the superstitious, there is scarcely a movement of the cat which is not supposed to have some significance.

"Cats are exceedingly fond of valerian (_V. officinalis_), and in Topsell's 'Four-footed Beasts' (1658, p. 81), we find the following curious remarks: 'The root of the herb valerian (called _Phu_), is very like to the eye of a cat, and wheresoever it groweth, if cats come thereunto, they instantly dig it up for the love thereof, as I myself have seen in mine own garden, for it smelleth moreover like a cat.' There is also an English rhyme on the plant _marum_ to the following effect:

If you see it, The cats will eat it; If you sow it, The cats will know it.

"In Suffolk, cats' eyes are supposed to dilate and contract with the flow and ebb of the tide. In Lancashire the common people have an idea that those who play much with cats never have good health."[E]

[E] Mr. T. F. Thiselton Dyer's "English Folk-lore."

If tincture of valerian is sprinkled on a plant or bush the neighbouring cats roll and rub themselves on or against it, often biting and scratching the plant to pieces.--H. W.

In Lancashire it is regarded as unlucky to allow a cat to die in a house. Hence,[F] when they are ill they are usually drowned.

[F] Harland and Wilkinson, "Lancashire Folk-lore," p. 141.

At Christ Church, Spitalfields, there is a benefaction for the widows of weavers under certain restrictions, called "cat and dog money." There is a tradition in the parish that money was given in the first instance to cats and dogs.[G]

[G] Edwards's "Old English Customs," p. 54.

If a cat tears at the cushions, carpet, and other articles of furniture with its claws, it is considered a sign of wind. Hence the saying, "the cat is raising the wind."

Mr. Park's note in his copy of Bourn and Brand's "Popular Antiquities," p. 92, says: "Cats sitting with their tails to the fire, or washing with their paws behind their ears, are said to foretell a change of weather."

In Pules' play of "The Novice" is the line:

Ere Gil, our cat, can lick her ear.

This is from Brand, and I do not think it refers to the weather, but to an impossibility.

A CAT-CLOCK.

The following curious incident is to be found in Huc's "Chinese Empire":

"One day, when we went to pay a visit to some families of Chinese Christian peasants, we met, near a farm, a young lad, who was taking a buffalo to graze along our path. We asked him carelessly as we passed whether it was yet noon. The child raised his head to look at the sun, but it was hidden behind thick clouds, and he could read no answer there. 'The sky is so cloudy,' said he; 'but wait a moment;' and with these words he ran towards the farm, and came back a few minutes afterwards with a cat in his arms. 'Look here,' said he, 'it is not noon yet;' and he showed us the cat's eyes by pushing up the lids with his hands. We looked at the child with surprise; but he was evidently in earnest, and the cat, though astonished, and not much pleased at the experiment made on her eyes, behaved with most exemplary complaisance. 'Very well,' said we, 'thank you;' and he then let go the cat, who made her escape pretty quickly, and we continued our route. To say the truth, we had not at all understood the proceeding, but did not wish to question the little pagan, lest he should find out that we were Europeans by our ignorance. As soon as we reached the farm, however, we made haste to ask our Christians whether they could tell the clock by looking into the cat's eyes. They seemed surprised at the question, but as there was no danger in confessing to them our ignorance of the properties of the cat's eyes, we related what had just taken place. That was all that was necessary; our complaisant neophytes immediately gave chase to all the cats in the neighbourhood. They brought us three or four, and explained in what manner they might be made use of for watches. They pointed out that the pupils of their eyes went on constantly growing narrower until twelve o'clock, when they became like a fine line, as thin as a hair, drawn perpendicularly across the eye, and that after twelve the dilatation recommenced."

* * * * *

"Archbishop Whately once declared that there was only one noun in English which had a real vocative case. It was 'cat,' vocative 'puss.' I wonder if this derivation is true (I take it from a New York journal): When the Egyptians of old worshipped the cat they settled it that she was like the moon, because she was more bright at night, and because her eyes changed just as the moon changes--from new, to crescent, and to full. So they made an idol of the cat's head, and named it _pasht_, which meant the face of the moon. _Pasht_ became pas, pus, puss."--_Church Times_, March 8th, 1888.

"PUSS IN BOOTS" (_Le Chat Botte_)

Is from the "Eleventh Night" of Straparola's Italian fairy tales, where Constantine's cat procures his master a fine castle and the king's heiress, first translated into French in 1585. Our version is taken from that of Charles Perrault. There is a similar one in the Scandinavian nursery tales. This clever cat secures a fortune and a royal partner for his master, who passes off as the Marquis of Carabas, but is in reality a young miller, without a penny in the world.

The above is from Dr. Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," and goes far to prove the antiquity of what is generally believed to be a modern story, many believing it to be one of the numberless pleasant, amusing, and in a sense instructive nursery or children's stories of the present time.

SIGNS.

D'Urfey, in his poem on Knole, speaks of "The Cats" at Sevenoaks.

"The Cat" or "Cats" is by no means a common sign. The subject is well alluded to in "The Cat, Past and Present," from the French of M. Champfleury, translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey, at page 33. A sign is pictured from the Lombards' quarter, Paris. It is there over a confectioner's shop, and is a cat seated, or rather two, a sign being placed on either side of the corner. Underneath one is "Au Chat," the other, "Noir." I may add the work is a most excellent and amusing collection of much appertaining to cats, and is well worthy of a place in the cat-lover's library.

In Larwood and Hotten's "History of Sign-boards," a work of much research and merit, occurs the following: "As I was going through a street of London where I had never been till then, I felt a general damp and faintness all over me which I could not tell how to account for, till I chanced to cast my eyes upwards, and found I was passing under a sign-post on which the picture of a _cat_ was hung." This little incident of the cat-hater, told in No. 538 of _The Spectator_, is a proof of the presence of cats on the sign-board, where, indeed, they are still to be met with, but very rarely. There is a sign of "The Cat" at Egremont, in Cumberland, a "Black Cat" at St. Leonard's Gate, Lancaster, and a "Red Cat" at Birkenhead; and a "Red Cat" in the Hague, Holland, to which is attached an amusing story worthy of perusal.

"The Cat and Parrot" and "The Cat and Lion" apparently have no direct meaning, unless by the former may be inferred that if you lap like a cat of the liquids sold at the hostelry, you will talk like a parrot; yet, according to Larwood and Hotten, it was a bookseller's sign.

"The Cat and Cage" and "The Cat in Basket" were signs much in vogue during the frost fair on the Thames in 1739-40, a live cat being hung outside some of the booths, which afterwards was not infrequent at other festive meetings. What the exact origin was is not quite apparent.

"'Cat and Fiddle,' a public-house sign, is a corruption either of the French _Catherine la fidele_, wife of Czar Peter the Great of Russia, or of _Caton le fidele_, meaning Caton, governor of Calais."--DR. BREWER'S _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_.

* * * * *

_Cat and Fiddle._--"While on the subject of sign-boards," says a writer in Cassell's "Old and New London," vol. i., p. 507, "we may state that Piccadilly was the place in which 'The Cat and Fiddle' first appeared as a public-house sign. The story is that a Frenchwoman, a small shopkeeper at the eastern end soon after it was built, had a very faithful and favourite cat, and that in the lack of any other sign she put over her door the words, 'Voici un Chat fidele.' From some cause or other the 'Chat fidele' soon became a popular sign in France, and was speedily Anglicised into 'The Cat and Fiddle,' because the words form part of one of our most popular nursery rhymes. We do not pledge ourselves as to the accuracy of this definition."

"In Farringdon (Devon) is the sign of 'La Chatte Fidele,' in commemoration of a faithful cat. Without scanning the phrase too nicely, it may simply indicate that the game of _cat_ (trap-ball) and a _fiddle_ for dancing are provided for customers."

Yet, according to Larwood and Hotten's "History of Sign-boards," there is yet another version, and another, of the matter, for it is stated, "a little hidden meaning is there in the 'Cat and Fiddle,' still a great favourite in Hampshire, the only connection between the animal and the instrument being that the strings are made from cats' entrails (_sic_), and that a small fiddle is called a _kit_, and a small cat a _kitten_; besides, they have been united from time immemorial in the nursery rhyme:

Heigh diddle diddle, The Cat and the fiddle."

Amongst the other explanations offered is the one that it may have originated with the sign of a certain _Caton Fidele_, a staunch Protestant in the reign of Queen Mary, and only have been changed into the cat and fiddle by corruption; but if so it must have lost its original appellation very soon, for as early as 1589 we find "Henry Carr, signe of the _Catte and Fidle_ in the olde Chaunge." Formerly there was a "_Cat and Fiddle_ at Norwich, the Cat being represented playing on a fiddle, and a number of mice dancing round her."

_Cat and Bagpipes._--Was not uncommon in Ireland, this instrument being the national one in place of the fiddle.

When doctors disagree, who shall decide? Thus I leave it.

_Cat and Mutton_, from Cassell's "Old and New London," vol. iv., p. 223:

"Near the Imperial Gas Works, Haggerston, is Goldsmith's row; this was formerly known as Mutton Lane, a name still given to that part of the thoroughfare bordering on the southern extremity of London Fields, where stands a noted public-house rejoicing in the sign of the 'Cat and Mutton' affixed to the house, and _two_ sign-boards, which are rather curious. They have upon them the following doggerel lines:

Pray Puss do not tare, Because the Mutton is so rare.

Pray Puss do not claw, Because the Mutton is so raw.

_Cat and Wheel._--Most likely to be a corruption of Catherine Wheel; there was a sign of this name in the Borough, Southwark.

In France some signs are still more peculiar, as a "Cat Playing at Raquet" (_Chatte qui pelote_), "Fishing Cat" (_La Chatte qui peche_), "The Dancing Cat," and the well-known "Puss in Boots."

"Whittington and his Cat" is by no means uncommon, and was not unknown in the early part of the seventeenth century. Somewhere I remember having seen "Whittington's Cat" without the master, which, I suppose, arose from the painter not knowing how to portray "Sir Richard."

"_Cat and Kittens._--A public-house sign, alluding to the pewter pots so called. Stealing these pots is termed 'Cat and kitten sneaking.' We still call a large kettle a _kitchen_, and speak of a soldier's _kit_ (Saxon, _cytel_, a pot, pan, or vessel generally)."--BREWER'S _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_.

May not this sign be intended to mean merely what is shown, "The Cat and Kittens," indicative of comfort and rest? Or may it have been "Cat and _Chitterlings_," in allusion to the source from which fiddlestrings were said to be derived?

_Cat and Tortoise._--This seems to have no meaning other than at a tavern extremes meet, the fast and the slow, the lively and the stolid; or it is possibly a corruption of something widely different.

THE LAW ON CAT KILLING.

An "Articled Clerk," writing to _The Standard_ with regard to the illegality of killing cats, states: "It is clearly laid down in 'Addison on Torts,' that a person is not justified in killing his neighbour's cat, or dog, which he finds on his land, unless the animal is in the act of doing some injurious act which can only be prevented by its slaughter.

"And it has been decided by the case of 'Townsend v. Watken' 9 last 277, that if a person sets on his lands a trap for foxes, and baits it with such strong-smelling meat as to attract his neighbour's dog or cat on to his land, to the trap, and such animal is thereby killed or injured, he is liable for the act, though he had no intention of doing it, and though the animal ought not to have been on his land."

DEAD CATS.

Lifeless cats have been from time immemorial suggestive of foolish hoaxing, a parcel being made up, or a basket with the legs of a hare projecting, directed to some one at a distance, and on which the charge for carriage comes to a considerable sum, the _fortunate_ recipient ultimately, to his great annoyance, finding "his present" was nothing else but "a dead cat." Dead cats, which not infrequently were cast into the streets, or accidentally killed there, were sometimes used as objects of sport by the silly, low-minded, and vulgar, and it was thought a "clever thing" if they could deposit such in a drawing-room through an open window, or pitch the unfortunate animal, often crushed and dirty, into a passing carriage; but "the time of times" when it was considered to be a legitimate object to use was that of either a borough or county election, cats and rotten eggs forming the material with which the assault was conducted in the event of an unpopular candidate for honours attempting to give his political views to a depreciatory mob surrounding the hustings. An anecdote is recorded in Grose's "Olio" of Mr. Fox, who, in 1784, was a candidate for Westminster, which goes far to show what dirty, degrading, disgusting indignities the would-be "_people's_ representative" had to endure at that period, and with what good humour such favours of popular appreciation, or otherwise, were received:

"During the poll, a dead cat being thrown on the hustings, one of Sir Cecil Wray's party observed it stunk worse than _a fox_; to which Mr. Fox replied there was nothing extraordinary in that, considering it was a 'poll cat.'"