SIGNS. 20S 



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 pubUc-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 m.atter, 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." 



