THE CAT= 



my gossip, sisters, let him go ! " and the next 

 morning he was found lying unconscious, but un- 

 harmed, across the forest road. 



From Scandinavia, where the fair white cats of 

 Freija were once as honoured as were Odin's ravens 

 and Thor's goats, comes the tale of the haunted 

 mill, in which dreadful revelry was heard at night, 

 and which had been twice burned to the ground on 

 Whitsun Eve. The third year, a travelling tailor, 

 pious and brave, offered to keep watch. He 

 chalked a circle on the floor, wrote the Lord's 

 prayer around it, and waited with patience until 

 midnight. Then a troop of cats crept stealthily 

 in, carrying a great pot of pitch which they hung 

 in the fireplace, lighting the logs beneath it. Soon 

 the pitch bubbled and seethed, and the cats, swing- 

 ing the pot, tried to overturn it. The tailor drove 

 them away; and when one, who seemed to be the 

 leader, sought to pull him gently outside the magic 

 circle, he cut off its paw with his knife. Upon this, 

 they all fled howling into the night; and the next 

 morning the miller saw with joy his mill standing 

 unharmed, and the great wheel turning merrily in 

 the water. But the miller's wife was ill in bed; 

 and, when the tailor bade her good-bye, she gave 

 him her left hand, hiding beneath the bedclothes 

 the right arm's bleeding stump. 



45 



