The King o' the Cats
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The King o' the Cats or The King of the Cats is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs. It is Aarne-Thompson type 6070B.
[edit] The story
A sexton (or in some versions, a gravedigger) returns to his wife in deep distress. He tells her that he had seen cats burying a coffin with a velvet pall and a golden coronet, and one had told him to tell Tom Tildrum, that Tim Toldrum's dead, but he has never heard of Tom Tildrum.
As soon as the sexton relates his tale, the family's tom-cat jumps up and says that if Tim Toldrum's dead, then he is now the king of cats! The cat then rushes up the chimney and is never seen again.
Another variation of the story is as follows:
Once upon a time, a man had a calf to sell and decided to go to the November fair in Macroom. He borrowed a horse and cart from a neighbour and was to set off for the fair at about one o'clock in the morning to be sure of arriving nice an early and getting a good price. At one o'clock, he got up and looked outside. The night was too black to see anything, so he stirred the fire into life and put on a kettle for a cup of tea while he harnessed the horse. There was a heavy mist coming down and the man was wet through by the time he had harnessed the horse and was ready for a hot cup of tea. He thought it was a foolish thing to be doing - going out on a cold, wet night to travel twenty miles in the dark, with only the lanterns on the sides of his cart to show him the way. Still, it had to be done, so he put on a thick coat and set off. The horse was just as unwilling to travel on that cold, wet night and would far rather be sleeping in its stable. Barely and hour had passed and both man and horse were wet through and miserable.
As they drew nearer to the town, the man could see the lights in the farms by the roadside, where the people were getting up for the fair - people who lived close enough to Macroom that they did not have to travel in the middle of the night. Soon there was quite a procession of people on the road with calves and cattle being driven to the fair. It was still dark and the daylight was only just coming. The man took his place in the fair, and no one made him an offer for the calf for a long time. A few made offers of poor prices and other farmers told him that the prices were low anyway. In the end, cold and dejected and tired from lack of sleep, he accepted an offer, though the price was not a good one, rather than be left to take the calf home again which would have meant a wasted journey.
Cold, wet and hungry, he made a few purchases and then met with some friends for some bread, cheese and ale before they all set off for their homes. He was not looking forward to the long journey home, but at least a full stomach and a quaff of ale raised his spirits a little. He let the horse go at her own pace and though the rain came down again, the man fell asleep wrapped in his greatcoat and huddled on the driver's seat of the cart. Dozing fitfully, he barely heard the other travellers passing him, but he began to have strange dreams that could scarcely be told from reality.
As he was passing the graveyard of Inchigeela, a cat put his head through the railings and said to the man, "Tell Balgeary that Balgury is dead." The man paid little heed to that, for he was too tired to know if it was real or just the product of his exhaustion. At last he arrived home and settled the horse in the stable with hay and water and went into the house to change out of his wet clothes. His wife immediately began to ask about the fair - how many were there, whether he got a good price for the calf and whether he had heard any news while in town. After replying to questions, the farmer told her to be quiet a while and fetch him soe tea to warm him through.
His wife fetched the tea and asked again if there was any news from town - people that had died, babies that had been born, people that had moved into or out of the area and people that had married since last time the farmer had been to town. Her husband told her he had been too wet and tired to stand around gossiping at the fair.
"Fancy going in all that way and hearing nothing at all," complained his wife, "And not getting a good price for the calf either. You might as well have stayed at home for all the good that you get out of a fair."
Finally, the man remembered the strange thing at inchigeela and said "The only news, if you can call it that and not a dream, was when I was passing the graveyard of Inchigeela. A cat stuck his head out of the railings and said 'tell Balgeary that Balgury is dead'."
At that, their cat, sitting before the fine, jumped up and glared at the man. "The Devil fire you!" said the cat, "why didn't you tell me before? I'll be late for the funeral. It does no good for the heir to be late."
And with that, the cat leapt through the cracked open window and was gone like the wind. From that day on, the farmer and his wife saw no sign of him.
[edit] In popular culture
"The King o' the Cats" is referenced, with slight changes, in Diane Duane's Young Wizards novel, A Wizard Abroad.
The story is also referenced several times in the Peter Straub novel, Shadowland.
Carbonel: The King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh is inspired in part by this tale, as are its two sequels, The Kingdom of Carbonel and Carbonel and Callidor. See: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales by Donald Haase.
DC Comics' Batman has a character named the King of the Cats, who is Catwoman's brother before he was eliminated in Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists have an EP titled "Tell Balgeary that Balgury is Dead" seemingly referencing this story
