what you should do if you find a fairy dog

thanks british library flickr

Hafod y Gareg's wife is on her way home from church when she comes across a tiny, exhausted dog.  This is the opening to a Welsh folktale that manages to dovetail a test of character and a trick question in a very short time.  Where did the dog come from?  Or...whom? Does she pass on all counts?  Aren't you curious?

the cat and mouse: hostile takeover

thanks wikimedia commons. pd

British artist Walter Crane created the illustration above (I regret I can't find a bigger version) for a Brothers Grimm tale, "The Cat and Mouse in Partnership."  In this story, a cat misleads a mouse to think that they will have a prosperous and happy life together.  What actually happens: the cat lies about where it goes and what it finds, eats up all the treats he discovers, and leaves nothing for his friend.  In the end, the mouse gets wise and the cat eats her. Him.  Well, you can see where the genders would really be open to interpretation, though yet again the cat is the bad guy.  A version of this story about the cruel, cruel world is here.

it's puss in boots

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library.
(1841 - 1842). Le chat botté.
Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-8463-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Here's Charles Emilie Jacque with his 1841-2 portrait of that clever hero, Puss in Boots, looking very 17th century with his tricorne hat.  I must say I'm a huge fan of the Antonio Banderas Puss: "Very well.  If it is to be a dance fight, then I will Tuesday night dance fight you to the death!"  This Puss doesn't look like the dance fight type.

the day has come: puss in print on kindle

thank you kib prestridge for your awesome cover

Yes, I know, you've heard me talk about it so long you thought it was never going to happen.  Me too.
Yet here it is, Puss in Print: A collection from thepetmuseum.com.
Available right the heck now on Kindle.  Soon to be available on Barnes&Noble NOOK.
This has been a learning experience and a half, and I don't think I'm done learning yet.  Should you pick up this little trifle, please know it comes with my warmest affection for all my Museum friends and the kind support you've given me all these years!
Big shout to the gang at Booknook, without whom this book would not ever had been prepared for all these brave new electronic platforms!

two hungarian cat fables

thanks vintageimages.org (PD)

From a volume introducing Hungarian poetry and fables to an English-speaking audience (the Hungarian titles are in parentheses).

* * *
THE CHILD AND THE CAT.
(A GYERMEK ES A MACSEA.)
A Farmer's child was once teazing a cat, by offering her a mouthful of cheese, and then mischievously snatching it away from her. The mouse-catcher after a time slunk away ; but soon sidled back again, unobserved, to her tormentor; when just as he was about to take a fresh piece into his mouth, she, making a dexterous spring, tore it out of the crying child's hand, and then, eagerly snapping it up, ran off with it.
"See, my son," said the father to the weeping lad; "repeated deception teaches others to deceive."

CONDESCENSION OF THE GREAT.
(NAGYOK LEERESZKEDESE.)
A Tom-cat was boasting everywhere, that the lion, whom he had visited during an illness, had received him as a relation.
"And had he no favour to ask of you?" inquired the cunning fox.
"Well, yes," replied Master Tom; " a rat, which had made its way into his den, continually disturbed the invalid's rest, on which account he begged me to put an end to the tormentor."
"I thought as much directly," answered Reynard, "for the condescension of the great is seldom above suspicion, and generally shows that they stand in some need of us."

-- From Hungarian poems and fables for English readers, selected and tr. by E.D. Butler (London: Trubner and Co., 1877) pp. 59-61.

holy celtic pets

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:US) and the British Library
Illustration of a fox; detail of a miniature from the Rochester Bestiary, BL Royal 12 F xiii, f. 26v.
Held and digitised by the British Library

. . . Erc, one of Patrick's disciples who lived beside the Boyne, kept a flock of geese, and the half of one of their eggs did him for twenty-four hours. (We are here reminded how the monks sometimes tamed the wild animals and birds of the wood, and turned them into pets. It is related of St. Kieran of Saigir that a fox, a wolf, a badger, and a wild boar were thus domesticated by him, and that he was wont to call them his monks, and himself their abbot. They were in such subjection that when the fox committed a theft, and St. Kieran required him to do penance, he submitted as if he knew all about it! St. Kevin of Glendalough is said to have had a blackbird that laid her eggs and hatched her brood in his hand! But this is only by the way.)

- from James Heron, The Celtic Church in Ireland: The Story of Ireland and Irish Christianity (Service & Paton, 1898), pp. 138-9.  The illustration is only because it's a thieving fox and it's splendid.

a folktale from india: the cat who became a queen

Once upon a time a Kashmir monarch bewailed that though he had many wives, he had no son. Faced with banishment if they didn't come up with one, the royal ladies beseeched the god Shiva, but as the gods tend to do, he answered their prayers a bit left-handedly...with a litter of kittens.

Told that he had a lovely daughter (one of the kittens) and that soothsayers recommended he not see her till her marriage, the ruler managed to be content. And then came the day the kitten-now-grown was to be married to a young prince.

What happened then? Well, thanks to the kindness of the prince and his mother, and the intervention of Shiva's wife Parvati, the cat's tears of frustration and sadness were wiped away. Want to know how? Best read the story!