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."
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."
"'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.'"
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.
"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.
"And again:
Kiss the black cat,"In Scotland there is a children's rhyme upon the purring of the cat:
Dirdum drum,"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,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."
I will but 'noint, and then I'll mount.
(A Spirit like a cat descends. Voice above.)
There's one come down to fetch his dues.
(Later on the Voice calls.) Hark! hark! the cat sings a brave treble in
her own language.
(Then Hecate.) Now I go, now I fly,
Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I, etc.
Possibly from this lively fiery sparkling tendency, combined with its noiseless motion and stealthy habits, our ancestors were led in the happily bygone superstitious days to regard the unconscious animal as a "familiar" of Satan or some other evil spirit, which generally appeared in the form of a black cat; hence witches were said to have a black cat as their "familiar," or could at will change themselves into the form of a black cat with eyes of fire. Shakespeare says, "the cat with eyne of burning coal," and in Middleton's Witch, Act III., Hecate says:
A very remarkable peculiarity of the domestic cat, and possibly one that has had much to do with the ill favour with which it has been regarded, especially in the Middle Ages, is the extraordinary property which its fur possesses of yielding electric sparks when hand-rubbed or by other friction, the black in a larger degree than any other colour, even the rapid motion of a fast retreating cat through rough, tangled underwood having been known to produce a luminous effect. In frosty weather it is the more noticeable, the coldness of the weather apparently giving intensity and brilliancy, which to the ignorant would certainly be attributed to the interference of the spiritual or superhuman. To sensitive natures and nervous temperaments the very contact with the fur of the black cat will often produce a startling thrill or absolutely an electric shock. That carefully observant naturalist, Gilbert White, speaking of the frost of 1785, notes: "During those two Siberian days my parlour cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and been properly insulated, the shock might have been given to a whole circle of people."
Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, looks with much disfavour, not only on cats but also dogs; in fact, the dog was held in as high disdain as the cat:
And every cat and dog,Here is Hamlet's opinion:
The cat will mew, the dog will have his day.In Cymbeline there is:
In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs.The foregoing is enough to show the great poet's opinion of the cat.
The feud with the wild cat intensifies in Midsummer Night's Dream; 'tis Lysander speaks:
Hang off, thou cat, thou burr, thou vile thing.And Gremio tells of the untamableness of the wild cat, which he deems apparently impossible:
But will you woo this wild cat?and further on:
As there is no firm reason to be renderedNote the distinction he makes between the wild and the domestic cat; the one, evidently, he knew the value and use of, and the other, its peculiar stealthy ways and of nature dread. In All's Well that Ends Well, he gives vent to his dislike; Bertram rages forth:
I could endure anything before but a cat,Of the night-time food-seeking cat, in The Merchant of Venice, old Shylock talks of the
...Slow in profit, and he sleeps by dayIn the same play Shylock discourses of those that have a natural horror of certain animals, which holds good till this day:
Some men there are love not a gaping pig,and of the forlorn loneliness of the age-stricken male cat in King Henry the Fourth, Falstaff, murmuring, says:
I am as melancholy as a gib cat.He marks, too, the difference of action in the lion and cat, in a state of nature:
A crouching lion and a ramping cat.and in the same play the strange superstitious fear attached to the voice and presence of the cat at certain times and seasons:
Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.The line almost carries a kind of awe with it, a sort of feeling of "what next will happen?" He noted, also, as he did most things, its marvellous powers of observation, for in Coriolanus, Act IV., Scene 2, occurs the following:
Cats, that can judge as fitly.And in King Henry the Fourth, Act IV., Scene 2, of its pilfering ways, Falstaff cries out:
I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.While Lady Macbeth points to the uncertain, timid, cautious habits of the cat, amounting almost to cowardice:
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,How truthfully he alludes to the peculiar eyes of the cat, the fine mark that the pupil dwindles to when the sun rides high in the heavens! Hear Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew:
And so disfigure her with it, that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.
As to the food of the cat, he well informs us that at this distant period domestic cats were fed and cared for to a certain extent, for besides much else, he points to the fact of its love of milk in The Tempest, Antonio's reply to Sebastian in Act II., Scene 1:
For all the rest,Shakespeare mentions the cat forty-four times, and in this, like nearly all else of which he wrote, displayed both wonderful and accurate knowledge, not only of the form, nature, habits, and food of the animal, but also the inner life, the disposition, what it was, of what capable, and what it resembled. How truly he saw either from study, observation, or intuitively knew, not only the outward contour of "men and things," but could see within the casket which held the life and being, noting clearly thoughts, feelings, aspirations, intents, and purposes, not of the one only, but that also of the brute creation.
The mice at a consultation held how to secure themselves from the cat, resolved upon hanging a bell about her neck, to give warning when she was near; but when this was resolved, they were as far to seek; for who would do it? R. Who will court danger to benefit others?
A Douglas in the olden time, at a meeting of conspirators, said he would "bell the cat." Afterwards the enemy was taken by him, he retaining the cognomen of "Archibald Bell-the-cat."
You can have no more of a cat than its skin. You can have no more of a man but what he can do or what he has, or no more from a jug than what it contains.
When the weasel and the cat make a marriage, it is very ill presage. When enemies counsel together, take heed; when rogues agree, let the honest folk beware.
When the maid leaves the door open, the cat's in fault. It is always well to have another to bear the blame. The way to do ill deeds oft makes ill deeds done.
Who shall hang the bell about the cat's neck? Heywood, 1562.
"Who shall ty the bell about the cat's necke low?The first appears the most correct.
What the good wife spares the cat eats. Favourites are well cared for.
When candles are out all cats are gray. In the dark all are alike. This is said of beauty in general.
When the cat is away the mice will play. "The Bachelor's Banquet," 1603. Heywood's "Woman Killed with Kindness," 1607. When danger is past, it is time to rejoice.
Jack Juggler, edit. 1848, p. 46.
Those bribed are worse than blind.
"Well wots the cat whose beard she licketh." Skelton's Garlande of Laurel, 1523.
"Wel wot nure cat whas berd he lickat." Wright's Essays, vol. i. p. 149.
"The cat knoweth whose lips she licketh." Heywood, 1562.
To love it as a cat loves mustard. Not at all. To abhor.
Two cats and a mouse, two wives in one house, two dogs and one bone, never agree. No peace when all want to be masters, or to possess one object.
Well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out.
"Sumwhat it was sayeth the proverbe old,To go like a cat on a hot bake-stone. To lose no time. To be swift and stay not.
To keep a cat from the tongs. To stop at home in idleness. It is said of a youth who stays at home with his family, when others go to the wars abroad, in "A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Serving Men," 1598.
Too late repents the rat when caught by the cat. Shun danger, nor dare too long.
Thou'lt strip it, as Stack stripped the cat when he pulled her out of the churn. To take away everything.
Though the cat winks awhile, yet sure he is not blind. To know all and pretend ignorance.
To grin like a Cheshire cat. Said to be like a cheese cat, often made in Cheshire; but this is not very clear, and the meaning doubtful.
The mouse lords it where the cat is not. MS., 15th century. The little rule, where there are no great.
The old cat laps as much as the young. Clarke. One evil is much like another.
They agree like two cats in gutter. Heywood. To be less than friends.
They argue like cats and dogs. That is to quarrel.
The cat sees not the mouse ever. Heywood. Those that should hide, see more than they who seek. The fearful eye sees far.
The liquorish cat gets many a rap. The wrong-doer escapes not.
The more you rub a cat on the back, the higher she sets her tail. Praise the vain and they are more than pleased. Flattery and vanity are near akin.
The cat would eat fish, and would not wet her feet. Heywood, 1562.
"Fain would the cat fish eat,Dr. Trench has pointed out the allusion to this saying in Macbeth, when Lady Macbeth speaks of her husband as a man,
"Letting I dare not, wait upon I would,The cat is hungry when a crust contents her. Hunger is a good sauce.
The cat is out of kind that sweet milk will not lap. One is wrong who forsakes custom. "History of Jacob and Esau," 1568.
The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog, rule England under one hog. "A Myrrour for Magistrates," edition 1563, fol. 143. This couplet is a satire on Richard III. (who carried a boar on his escutcheon) and his myrmidons, Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovell.
That comes of a cat will catch mice. What is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. Like father, like son.
The cat and dog may kiss, but are none the better friends. Policy is one thing, friendship another.
The cat invites the mouse to her feast. It is difficult for the weak to refuse the strong.
The cat is in the cream-pot. Any one's fault but hers. A row in the house (Northern).
