Cat Tales

Cat Tales
Many people find cats fascinating, and folklore abounds with stories that attribute meaning to just about any little thing a cat might do. One legend has it that rain may be expected when cats are frisky; another claims this is true only if a cat passes a paw over both ears while washing. Guests can be expected when a cat trims its whiskers, but when it stretches its paws toward the fire, those approaching the house are strangers. A cat sneezing near a bride on her wedding day predicts a happy marriage, but three sneezes mean colds for everyone in the house. And in Elizabethan times, neither black nor white but brindled (Tabby) cats were most often associated with witches, like the famous three in Shakespeare’s Macbeth who take the fact that “thrice the brindled cat hath mewed” as a signal for action. No one can fully account for the way cat colors have gone in and out of style over centuries. So perhaps it’s safest to follow Welsh tradition, which holds that those who keep both a coal black cat and a snowy white one are the luckiest of all. And the tendency of many cats to appear aloof and indifferent to humans caused some people to regard them as “otherworldly” creatures with secret lives. So if you sometimes like to pat the head of a soft, purring cat and whisper a secret into its ear, you might want to consider telling a dog instead.