34^ The Poets' Beasts. 



is the "mouse-eater," and because the poets, who dislike 

 mice, applaud her taste, becomes the "harmless necessary 

 cat."' 



It is a curious fact, however, that classic legend makes 

 this animal the protector of the innocent : that in Hindoo 

 mythology she is sometimes the ally of little birds, and that 

 in monkish tradition St. Gertrude, a funereal saint, Svho is 

 the patroness of mice, is also the protector of cats. More- 

 over, puss, in occasional myths, is the crony of the dog, and 

 figures as the protector of poultry from the fox, of lambs 

 from wolves. 



On the other hand, " the vermin-hunter " is a much 

 more frequent character. " By the austerity which it prac- 

 tises on the banks of the Ganges it inspires confidence 

 in the birds, who gather round it to pay reverence to its 

 sanctity. The mice imitate their example, and place them- 

 selves under the cat's tutorship. The cat of course eats 

 them, and by inducing them to go with it only two or three 

 at a time, grows mysteriously fat for a fakir." This assump- 

 tion of sanctimoniousness is not an uncommon characteristic 

 of the cat of fable. "II fait le saint, il fait la chattel" 

 The oldest of all myths shows us the cat moon eating up 

 the grey mice of twilight. That Diana, a lunar divinity, 

 should have taken the feline form is therefore strictly in 

 accordance with the original Aryan fancy ; and so, too, we 

 find Freyya, the Scandinavian Selene, drawn sometimes by 

 a team of cats. 



But it pleases me immensely to remark how this little 

 animal of contradictions and perplexities puzzle mytho- 

 logists. They mix it up with the lynx and the ichneumon 

 and the mole. These are thieving, hunting, secret animals, 

 and so are distorted into the myth-phrases of night, and the 

 nocturnal forest, and so forth. In the Sahskrit, so we are 

 assured, the same epithet is indiscriminately applied to cat 

 and thief. It is in fact the beast "of three letters." So 



