Contents

BtC 1/22. Introduction

Beware the Cat Characters

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, ESQ., MR JOHN YOUNG, GRACE AND HEALTH

BtC 2/22. Setting the Scene

THE ARGUMENT

BtC 3/22. You’ll need to get used to how Mr Streamer speaks

THE FIRST PART OF MR STREAMERS ORATION

BtC 4/22. Down another layer: The Servant’s Story

The Servant’s Story and Discussion

BtC 5/22. Off to Ireland with the Irish Churl’s story

The Irish Churl’s Story

BtC 6/22. Group Discussion Time!

The Irish Churl’s Story is Discussed

BtC 7/22. Witches and Werewolves and Hermits! Oh My! Back to Ireland

Thomas Discusses Seven-Year Wolves

BtC 8/22. The First Part Draws to a Close

Mr Streamer Discusses Thomas’s Tales

BtC 9/22. Aside: Is Beware the Cat a Novel?

BtC 10/22. On to the Second Part

THE SECOND PART OF MR STREAMER’S ORATION

BtC 11/22. Magic potions and a hedgehog

The Next Morning Mr Streamer Goes Looking for a Hedgehog

BtC 12/22. Don’t Try This at Home

Mr Streamer Makes His Medicine

Mr Streamer Consumes the Medicine and Makes More

BtC 13/22. Turn on, Tune in, Drop out Tudor Style

The Effect of the Medicine on Mr Streamer

BtC 14/22. Aside. The Genre Styles of Beware the Cat

BtC 15/22. Mouseslayer takes over

THE THIRD PART OF MR STREAMERS ORATION

The Great Grey Cat Convenes

BtC 16/22. Talking Cats and Transubstantiation

Mouseslayer’s First Story

The Cats discuss Mouseslayer’s First Story

BtC 17/22. The Women in a Cat’s Life

Mouseslayer’s Second Story

BtC 18/22. A Glimpse into Cat Society

Mouseslayer’s defence against Catchrat

BtC 19/22. Two More Tales from Mouseslayer

Mouseslayer’s Third Story

Mouseslayer’s Fourth Story

BtC 20/22. Back to Mr Streamer and Human Society

Mr Streamer Concludes his Adventure

BtC 21/22. The End of the Book

AN EXHORTATION

THE HYMN

BtC 22/22. Message Fiction, Religion and Beware the Cat

BtC 1/22. Introduction

I’ve been cursed since an early age with a general interest in things. I say ‘cursed’ because in an age of specialisation a lack of focus results in a lack of specific expertise. However, poor discrimination in choosing topics of interest to follow does do wonders for my capacity to answer trivia questions.

In January 2017 I found myself stumped by a trivia question which I felt I should either know the answer to or that I should be able to work out. It was this:

What was the first English novel?

The apparent answer (according to the source of the trivia question) was Robinson Crusoe. Of course, the question is a matter of definition. What counts a novel? What counts as English? Do very long poems count or does it have to be in prose? What counts as fiction? Do legends count as fiction?

Running to Wikipedia to corroborate some of my guesses (no Thomas More’s Utopia doesn’t count because it was written in Latin), I came across one contender for the claim of first English novel. It was called Beware the Cat. Up until that moment I had not even so much as heard a rumour of a notable work in English called Beware the Cat.

The summary on Wikipedia sounded fascinating: a satirical story about magical cats and witches and werewolves and magical potions. I was determined to learn more.

Written by William Baldwin in 1553 during the short reign of Edward VI, Beware the Cat is a weird, multilayered romp that satirises Catholicism, false erudition and superstition. It also has talking cats in it. It ran afoul of events as the boy king’s reign was a short one and was followed by the reign of Queen Mary who re-instituted Catholicism in England and set about purging society of what she regarded as heresy.

Where can you read it?

You can read it here! But I’ll come to that shortly.

There are a number of places where it is available. Presscom has 19th century reprints available for free here http://www.presscom.co.uk/halliwell/baldwin/baldwin_cat.html

In addition there is a neater version available in The Broadview Anthology of Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose. This version has Baldwin’s margin comments as well as notes on the text.

There is also an updated modernised version that apparently appeared in an anthology called Tales of Lovecraftian Cats. I haven’t read this version yet.

What have I done to it?

The story is written in Early Modern English. In other words it is recognisably English to a modern reader (unlike Chaucer) but makes use of archaic words and unusual conventions. It also uses long run-on sentences and makes poor use of paragraphs. That makes it difficult to read just as a story. However, what is not immediately obvious is that some of the more incomprehensible passages are meant to be incomprehensible.

So I wanted a version I could just read. I didn’t want a modern version as such and I didn’t want to lose all the sixteenth-century feel or some of the more deliberate stylistic choices but I did want a version where I wasn’t having to re-parse every clause and phrase.

First step was to modernise spelling. Words like “followeth” became “follows” and so on. A long weary time with the spellchecker getting stuck on words like “baggagical” followed. You may still find the odd “els” instead of “else” etc

Second step was to simply sentences and references. This meant breaking up clauses into seperate sentences and tracking back multiple “whereofs”. I also often replaced pronouns with the name it was referring to - often long sentences had multiple cases of “he” which were hard to track.

Third step was chopping bits out. Not many and really only where I was both not sure of what was being said AND it was clearly meant to be not nonsense. I wanted a version were I wasn’t stumbling over a sentence. In some case I just chopped out extra qualifications (e.g. the Prior and Convent of the Abbey was simplified just to the Abbey). This may have changed the meaning in some cases but not the thrust of the story.

Fourth step was actually substituting words. For example “quod” became “said”. Likewise with obscure references I used simpler substitutes. There are several references to the “leads” of Aldersgate in London. “Leads” here refers to the lead of the roof and was a term for either the roof or part of the roof. For simplicity, I’ve just used “roof”. The main character Master Streamer is called a ‘divine’ and instead I’ve called him a ‘cleric’. ‘Priest’ seemed to much like I was saying he was a Catholic priest because of how that term is now rarely used for Church of England clergy.

Fifth step, checked names and places and rationalised them a bit. One story refers to county Washford in Ireland. From context this is meant to be Wexford.

Sixth step: paragraphs! The Broadview version may have done a better job of this.

Seventh step: subheadings and stories. The story has multiple narrators that are nested and whose stories also contain direct speech. Rather than have multiple nesting of speech marks and also to make the distinct stories easier to find, I’ve given each story its own section and heading. The titles are mine but based partly on Baldwin’s side notes.

Eight step: character names and references. There are many characters without proper names. To make them easier to identify I standardised the references to them. In particular the cat Mouseslayer tells stories about three different women who owned her. She uses terms like “dame”, “lady” and “mistress” interchangeably but to make it clearer which is which I’ve used “lady” for the first, “dame” for the second and “mistress” for the third.

Lastly I’ve added my own thoughts and comments before each section as well as some more general digressions.

What follows is a list of characters and the opening epistle to Beware the cat. Enjoy!

Beware The Cat Characters

Mr Baldwin: The author, a publisher of books

Mr Ferrers: Master of the King’s Pastimes

Mr Willet: Mr Ferrer’s astronomer

Mr Streamer: Narrator and Mr Ferrer’s cleric

Thomas/The servant who had been in Ireland: A servant in Mr Streamer’s lodging

The servant from Staffordshire: A servant in Mr Streamer’s lodging

The Irish Churl: An Irish peasant who told a story to Thomas

Apore: An Irish outlaw

The Great Grey Cat: An important cat

Grimalkin: The queen of cats

Mouseslayer: A cat who gives evidence in her defence to the Great Grey Cat

Mouseslayer’s Lady: an elderly devout woman who becomes blind

Mouseslayer’s Dame: A woman who made her living by “boarding young gentlemen, for whom she kept fair wenches in store, for whose sake she had more rent”

Mouseslayer’s Young Mistress: A woman who is tricked by Mouseslayer’s dame and who later becomes Mouseslayer’s owner.

Catchrat: A cat who has accused Mouseslayer of refusing to mate with him.

Isegrim: A cat and friend of Mouseslayer.

Lightfoot: A cat and Isegrim’s son.

Grisard: A cat knowledgeable in cat laws

Glascalon: A former cat monarch

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, ESQ., MR JOHN YOUNG, GRACE AND HEALTH.

I have written for your mastership’s pleasure one of the stories which Mr. Streamer told last Christmas - which you so would have heard reported by Mr Ferrers himself. Although I am unable to tell it as pleasantly as he could, I have nearly used both the order and words of him that spoke them. I doubt not that he and Mr. Willet shall in the reading think they hear Mr Streamer speak, and he himself shall doubt whether he speaks.

I have divided this story into three parts, and set the argument before and an instruction after them, with such notes as might be gathered, making it look like, and entitled, Beware the Cat.

Because I doubt whether Mr. Streamer will be content that other men plough with his oxen when perhaps he would rather do it himself, and receive the glory he deserves; therefore I ask you to learn his mind about this and peruse it before printing, and amend it in any point I have mistaken. I pray you likewise to ask Mr Ferrers his judgement of the text ; and show him that the cure of the great plunge of Mr Streamers translation out of the Arabic, which he sent me from Margate, shall be imprinted as soon as I may conveniently. If Mr Streamer allows my endeavours in this kind I will hereafter (as Plato did by Socrates) pen out the rest of our Christmas communications and no less pleasure to all them that desire such kinds of knowledge. In the mean while I beseech you to accept my good wit, and learn to Beware the Cat, so shall you not only understand that I aim to both seek and also please the Almighty, who always shall preserve you. Amen.

Yours to His power,

G. B.

BtC 2/22. Setting the Scene

Welcome to the first proper part of the annotated Beware the Cat. I’ll start each part with a discussion about what is going on.

The story starts one Christmas. George Ferrers is responsible for organising plays at the court of King Edward VI - the only male heir to Henry the Eighth. England has split from the Catholic Church and is undergoing a protestant reformation, which has picked up the pace during the short reign of Edward VI. That reformation is going to be cut short in a few months when Edward dies and the Catholic Queen Mary becomes monarch - the characters do not know this of course but the book itself was probably not published until Queen Elizabeth had replaced Mary.

Ferrers has with him his astronomer, Mr Willet and his priest Mr Streamer. With them is the author William Baldwin. All four men are sharing the same bedroom. I’m assuming that they are relatively young men but there is no evidence of this in the text. I think it is more the atmosphere of a group of friends hanging out on a cold winters night with one of them telling an extraordinarily tall tale that has an atmosphere of relative youth.

This first section (“The Argument” is Baldwin’s title) had Baldwin as the narrator. It frames the rest of the book as a discussion of two related questions:

1. Should plays depict animals talking? Baldwin suggests not because it is unnatural.

2. Do animals have the capacity to reason and talk? This question follows from the first. If animals do talk (all be it in their own species-specific language) then maybe it is not unnatural to show them speaking on stage.

This is the first bit of mischief from Baldwin. Despite this set-up Beware the Cat has no serious answer to these questions. The argument is simply a pretext for Mr Streamer to start addressing point 2 with stories about talking animals. Nor is this going to be a variety of talking animals but quite specifically cases of talking cats.

So let’s begin:

THE ARGUMENT

It chanced that last Christmas that I was in Court with Mr Ferrers (then master of the King’s pastimes), busy setting up certain interludes, which we had devised for the Kings recreation.

During that time among many other exercises among ourselves, we used nightly at our lodging to talk of many things for the furtherance of the offices in which each man served. For which purpose it pleased Mr Ferrer to make me his bedfellow, and upon a pallet cast upon the reeds in his own chamber, to lodge Mr Willet (his astronomer) and Mr Streamer (his cleric).

It happened on a night which I think was the twenty-eighth of December. Mr Ferrers had come from the court and was now in bed. There fell an argument between Mr Streamer (who with Mr Willet had already slept his first sleep) and myself (I had only just come to bed). The gist of the argument was whether birds or beasts had reason.

The occasion was this: I had heard that the King’s players were rehearsing a play of Aesop’s The Crow, in which most parts for the actors are birds. This style of play I did not commend, saying, it was not comical to make either speechless things to speak, or brutish things to converse reasonably, and although in a tale it might be suffered to imagine and perhaps tell of something by them spoken or reasonably done (which kind Aesop laudably used) but it was unwholesome (said I) to use actors pretending to be animals to speak reason. Mr Streamer and my lords divine (being more divine in this point than I was ware of) held the contrary part, affirming that beasts and fowls had reason and that as much as me, yes, and in some points maybe more!

Mr Ferrers himself and his astronomer were woken by our talking and listened to us, but would take part on neither side. Mr Streamer had for proof of his assertion declared many things such as: elephants that walked upon cords, hedgehogs that knew always what would come, foxes and dogs that after they had been all night abroad, killing geese and sheep would come home in the morning and put their necks into their collars, parrots that bewailed their keepers deaths, swallows that open their young one's eyes, and a hundred things more. All of which I denied come from reason, and be but natural kindly actions, alleging for my proofs authorities of most grave and learned philosophers.

"Well," said Mr Streamer, "I know what I know, and speak not only what by hearsay of our philosophers I know but what I myself have proved.”

"Why," said I then, "have you proof of beasts and fowls that reason?" 

"Yes," said he, "I have heard them and understood them both speak and reason, as well as I hear and understand you."

At this Mr Ferrers laughed, but I, remembering what I had red in Albertus's works, thought there might be somewhat more than I did know. Therefore I asked him what beasts or fowls he had heard, and where and when? At this he paused awhile and at last said:

”If I thought that you would be content to hear me, and without any interruption, till I have finished, then mark what I say, I would tell you such a story of one piece of my own, that shall make you wonder and put you out of any doubt concerning this matter. But this I promise you, if any man interrupts me, I will leave off and not speak one word more."

When we had promised quietly to hear, he (turning himself so in his bed as we might best hear him) said as follows…

BtC 3/22. You’ll need to get used to how Mr Streamer speaks

Previously on Beware the Cat: One Christmas, four friends are arguing about whether animals can talk. The argument passes to the cleric Mr Streamer. He has a story to tell…

https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/category/beware-the-cat/

Mr Streamer is a character in all senses of the word. The first paragraph of his story completely threw me at first. It seemed to be a lengthy discussion of how Aldersgate in London became called “Aldersgate” and that is exactly what it is. The only relevance to the rest of the story is that the roof of Aldersgate is the setting for a meeting of some cats.

The point of this paragraph is that it is a joke. The joke being that Mr Streamer tends to go off on tangents, loves to display his learning (mea culpa) and is often wrong (likewise). This actually a relatively tame rambling from Mr Streamer - later in the story he goes off on a bad psychedelic trip having taken mind/hearing expanding drugs (no, I’m not making this up).

Aldersgate and the printer’s house mentioned are real places. The printers house was apparently the home of a famous printer called John Day. The general area north of St Paul’s Cathedral was known for its printers and booksellers.

Aldersgate no longer physically exists but the area is still a ward in the City of London*.

Just to recap:

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Baldwin splits this narrative into three major sections (‘orations’) that define the structure of the book. I’ve further subdivided them into individual stories.

*[for those who don’t know already: the City of London is not the metropolis/major city called ‘London’ but just that bit of it that was once enclosed by medieval/Roman walls. These days it is the financial district of London and retains its only special local governance. The other gate names mentioned below exist in the names of streets, districts and even tube stations]

THE FIRST PART OF MR STREAMERS ORATION

I was lodged, as I have often been, at a friend’s house of mine, standing at Saint Martin’s Lane end. The house was hanged partly upon the town wall next to what is called Aldersgate - which is named after either someone called Aldrich, or else after “elders”, that is to say, the older men of the city, which built, as bishops did Bishops' Gate.Or perhaps named after elder trees which grow as they do in the gardens now there about, in much the same way that Moorgate took the name of the field next to it, which had been a moor. Or maybe because it is the most ancient gate of the cities, was named in respect of the other, as Newgate, called the Elder gate. Or else in the same way that Ludgate takes the name of Lud, who built it, so many will say that Aleredus built it, but they are deceived, for he and his wife Algag built Aldgate, which therefore takes the name, as Cripplegate does of a cripple, who begged so much in his life (and note the the silver weather cock which he stole from St Paul’s steeple) that after his death they named the gate after him.

But whatever way Aldersgate got its name, at my friend's house, which (as I said) stands so near that it is over it, I stay often, and that for a variety of reason; sometimes for lack of other lodging, and sometimes such as when my Greek Alphabets were in printing, to see that the book has been corrected. Sure it is a shame for all young men, if they be no more studious in languages (and the world is now come to that pass) that if he can put a little Latin, and handle a racket and a pair of dice, he shall sooner obtain any living then the best learned in a whole cities. This is cause that learning is now so despised.

While I lay at my friends house, I was lodged in a chamber hard by a printing house, which had a fair bay window opening into the garden, which is almost as high as Saint Anne Church top which stands thereby. At the other end of the printing house, as you enter in, is a side door and three or four steps which go up to the roof of the gate.

It is there, at the roof of the gate that the bodies of men who have been quartered (which is a loathly and abominable sight) are hung on poles. I call it abominable, because it is not only against nature, but against Scripture : for God commanded by Moses that after the sun went down, all such as had been hanged or otherwise put to death should be buried ; but if the sun saw them the next day his wrath should come upon them and plague them, as he has done this and many other realms for the like transgression. I marvel where men might have learned this custom, or for what cause they do it, unless it is to feed and please devils. For sure I believe there are some spirits, such as Misanthrope or Melochitus, who lived by the savour of men’s blood. These spirits after their sacrifice failed, in which men were slain and offered to them, put into butcherly heathen tyrants hands to mangle and boil Christian transgressors, and to set up their quarters for them to feed upon. Therefore I will counsel all men to bury or burn all executed, and refrain from making such abominable bodies sacrifices, as I have often seen, for ravens, or rather devils, feeding upon them in the roof of the gate. There also every night many cats assembled, and made such a noise that I could not sleep for them.

One time as I was sitting by the fire with people of the house, I told them what a noise, and what a wailing the cats had made there the night before. From ten o'clock till one they had howled, so that I could neither sleep nor study because of them.

By means of this introduction we fell into conversation about cats, with some people of the house affirming as I do now (but I was against it then) that cats had understanding. For confirmation one of the servants of the house told this story…

BtC 4/22. Down another layer: The Servant’s Story

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer is lodging at a printer’s house next to a gate in the city walls of Tudor London. The gate has the remains of executed people hanging from it and at night cats gather on the roof. Mr Streamer has struck conversation with the people of the house and a servant has volunteered to tell a story about cats.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: individual story told by another character

This first story is short and I’ve included the discussion that follows. It is primarily a lead in to the longer story by Thomas (aka the man who had been in Ireland) that I’ll cover in part 5.

After Mr Streamer’s tangents calmed down, we get a decent horror-style set up. The printer’s house next to the ancient city gate where the bodies of executed people are on display.*

The more general point here is superstition and dubious stories. Remember that this is intended as anti-Catholic satire but the thrust of the anti-catholicism is aimed at superstition and baseless tradition.

*[One of the more sympathetic aspects of Mr Streamer is his objection to the public display of executed criminals. I’m assuming it is meant to be a sympathetic aspect rather than a way of Baldwin implying (as he does elsewhere) that Mr Streamer has Catholic sympathies. It is not improbable that executed people were Catholics.]

The Servant’s Story and Discussion

“There was in my country,” said the servant, (the fellow was from Staffordshire,) “a man that had a young cat which he had brought up. He would nightly dally and play with it. One time as he rode through Kankwood, about certain business, a cat (as he thought) leaped out of a bush before him and called him twice or thrice by his name. The man made no answer nor could he speak for he was so frighten that he could not. She spoke to him plainly twice or these words:

’Commend me to Titten Tatten and to puss thy cat, and tell her that Grimalkin is dead.’

This done she went her way, and the man went about his business. And after that he returned home. In the evening sitting by the fire with his wife and his household, he told of his adventure in the wood. When he had told them all the cat’s message, his cat, which had listened to the tale, looked upon him sadly, and at last said: ‘And is Grimalkin dead ? then farewell dame!’ And then promptly went on her way and was never seen after.”

When this tale was done, another of the company who had been in Ireland asked this fellow when this tale told had happened? The servant answered that he could not say exactly, but he conjectured, not passing eleven years, for his mother knew both the man and the woman who owned the cat that the message was for.

“Sure,” said the other man, “it may well be, for about that same time I heard a similar thing happened in Ireland. If I remember rightly, Grimalkin (of whom you speak) was slain.”

“Yes, sir,” said I, “I pray you how so?”

“I will tell you, Mr Streamer,” said he, “that which was told me in Ireland, and which I have (till now) so little credited that I was ashamed to report it, but hearing what I hear now, and calling to mind my own experience when it was (I do so little misdoubt it), that I think I never told, nor you heard, ever a more likely tale

“While I was in Ireland in the time that MacMurrough and all the rest of the wild lords were the kings enemies. There was conflict between the Fitzhoneys and the Abbey of Tintern de Voto, who counted them as the kings friends and subjects. Their neighbour was Cayn MacOrt, a wild Irish man, then the kings enemy, and one who daily made inroads into the county of Wexford, and burned towns and carried away cattle. All the country from Climin to Ross, became a waste wilderness, and it has scarce recovered until this day.

“In this time, I say, as I was on a night at Cosbery with one of Fitzburys churls, we fell in talk, as we have done now, of strange adventures, and of cats ; and there, among other things, the churl (for so they call all farmers and husband men) told me as ye shall hear…

BtC 5/22. Off to Ireland with the Irish Churl’s story

Previously on Beware the Cat: At his printer’s house lodgings, Mr Streamer is being told stories about supernatural cats. He has already been told about the announcement of the death of the cat called Grimalkin. Now he is being told a story set in Ireland.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: an individual recounting a story told to them by…

Layer 4: …a character in their story

Medieval Britain was dominated by local Norman aristocrats controlling their own territory. This was also true of Ireland. Ireland had been settled by Norman knights (many who had previously settled in Wales*) who had established their own areas of dominance. The English state and the central power of English kings had grown in dominance via war. By Tudor times the political struggles in England would remain violent but had already begun to split on lines of religion and social class.

Ireland was another story altogether. Nominally controlled by England, local lords retained power. For Tudor Londoners, Ireland was akin to the Wild West - perceived as dangerous, barbarous and lawless.

Of course, it was also a place were the Reformation was not taking hold and would go on to become strongly identified with Catholicism.

The story here is that of an Irish peasant that was told to the servant called Thomas. Note, Mr Streamer hasn’t named Thomas yet but he gets round to it eventually.

So off to Ireland, to discover how Grimalkin was killed!

*[i.e.Tudor Irish nobility being descended from Vikings who had settled in Northern France, invaded England, settled in Wales and then moved to Ireland.]

The Irish Churl’s Story:

"There was (not seven years past) a kern of John Butler's dwelling in the fassock of Bantry, called Patrick Apore. He was minding to make an attack in the night upon Cager Makent, his masters enemy. He had with him his boy (as they call their horse keepers, even if they are old knaves). At night, they entered into a village of two houses and broke in and slew the people, and then took the farm animals they found (a cow and a sheep). They then departed homewards. Thinking they might be pursued (the cur dogs making such a shrill barking) Apore went into a church, hoping to hide there till midnight was past, for he was sure that no one would suspect or look for him inside a church.

The wild Irish men hold churches in such reverence (till our men taught them the contrary) that they neither would nor dare either rob or hurt any man that took sanctuary in the churchyard, even if he had killed his father.

While he was in the church, he thought it best to dine, for he had eaten little that day.He made his boy go gather sticks, and then make a fire in the church. He killed the sheep. after the Irish fashion, laid it on the fire and roasted it. When the sheep was ready, and he thought to eat it, there came into the church a cat, and she sat by him.

The cat said to him in Irish “shane foel” which means, "give me some meat," He, amazed at this, gave her the quarter that was in his hand, which immediately she ate up. The cat then kept asking for more until she had consumed the whole sheep. But, like a cormorant, she was not satisfied asked for still more.

Apore and his boy supposed that the cat must be the devil, and therefore thought it wisdom to please him, killed the cow which they had stolen. They flayed it and gave the cat a quarter, which she immediately devoured. So then they gave her two other quarters. Meanwhile, as is the fashion in Ireland, they cut a piece of the hide and stuck it on three stakes which they set about the fire and therein they set a piece of the cow for themselves. With the rest of the hide, they made each of them bags to wear about their feet, like brogues, both to keep their feet from hurt all the next day, but also to serve for meat the next night if they could get none other, by broiling them upon coals.

By this time the cat had eaten three-quarters of the cow and was calling for more, so they gave her the rest and doubting lest when she had eaten that she would eat them as well, they got them out of the church, and rode away as fast as they could.

When they were a mile or two from the church the moon began to shine, and the boy saw the cat upon a horse behind him. The boy took his dart and turning his face towards the cat, flung it, and struck her through with it. Immediately there came such a force of cats, that after a long fight with them that the boy was killed and eaten up. Apore himself (as good and as swift as his horse was) barely managed to escape.

When he was home, he put off his corselet of mail and shirt, and his helmet covered with gilt leather and crested with other skin. All weary and hungry he set himself down by his wife and told her his adventure. As he told his story, a kitten which his wife kept, scarce half a year old, stood up and said, “Have you killed Grimalkin ?" and there and then leapt on Apore’s face, and with her teeth took him by the throat, and before she could be pulled away, she had strangled him.

BtC 6/22. Group Discussion Time!

Previously on Beware the Cat: At the printer’s house, Mr Streamer has just been told the tale of the Irish outlaw and the death of the magical cat Grimalkin.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Back up a couple of layers into the main narrative again and the tale Thomas told sets off some discussion (which you can read below).

The previous story was excellent. An evil brigand meets a supernatural being and is eventually strangled by a kitten! It has all the usual licence of a folktale. How exactly is the cat supposed to eat some much and how exactly did they butcher a whole cow? Doesn’t matter - these details are supposed to be absurd in such a story.

What follows is a discussion among the assembled people at the printer’s house on the churl’s story and its connections with the previous story set in Staffordshire.

There are a bunch of themes here: the transformation of a person into something else (which has parallels with Catholic theology that I’ll discuss later), overt criticism of the Pope (who Mr Streamer defends by quoting Henry Tudor) and the weight the characters put on tall tales as a source of truth.

There is a rather cruel sub-story during the discussion about a time one of the people there was hired to roast a cat alive on a spit in a barrel (‘hogshead’). At least I think that is supposed to be what happens. You can read more about the cat abuse traditions of the Middle Ages here: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ritualistic-cat-torture-was-once-a-form-of-town-fun but you might not want to as none of it was very nice. Barrels do feature.

The barrel incident is the worst case of cat cruelty in Beware the Cat. There are lesser examples in the third part of the book (feeding a cat mustard and sticking walnut shells on a cats feet - the same cat but at different times and the cat survives unharmed but very pissed off and gets its revenge).

The Irish Churl’s Story is Discussed

"This the churl told me now about thirty-three winters past. He and other credible men informed me, that the events happened not seven years before. Whereupon I gather that this Grimalkin was the very cat that the cat in Kankwood sent news of to that other cat which we just heard about."

"Tush," said another man that sat nearby, "your conjecture is so unreasonable; for to admit that cats have reason and that they do, in their own language, understand one another, yet how should a cat in Kankwood know what had happened in Ireland ?" 

"How?" said he; "even as we know what is done in the realms of France, Flanders, and Spain, yea, and almost in all the world beside. There are very few ships that don’t have cats on them. They can bring news to their fellows from all quarters." 

"Yes," said the other, "but why should all cats love to hear of Grimalkin? Or how should Grimalkin eat so much meat as you speak of? Or why should all cats so desire to revenge her death?" 

"Nay, that passed my cunning," said he, "to show in all. Maybe that Grimalkin and her line is as much esteemed, and has the same dignity among cats, as the queen bee has among the whole hive, at whose commandments all bees are obedient, whose succour and safeguard they seek, whose wrongs they all revenge. Or, perhaps as the Pope has had before this over all of Christendom, in whose cause all his clergy would not only scratch and bite, but kill and burn to powder, though they know not why, whom so ever they thought to think against him. The Pope, all things considered, devoured more at every meal than Grimalkin did at her last supper." 

"No," said I, "although the Pope, by exactions and another trumpery, has spoiled people of mighty spoils, yet, as touching his own parts, he eats and wears as little as any other man, though perhaps more sumptuous and costly, and in greater abundance provided.

“I heard a very proper saying of King Henry the Seventh. When a servant of his told him what abundance of meat he had seen at an abbot's table, he reported him to be a great glutton. The King asked the servant if the abbot had eaten it all, and the servant answered no, the abbot’s guests eat the most part. ‘Ah!' said the king, 'you call him glutton for his liberality for feeding you and such other unthankful churls.' Like to this fellow are all ruffians; for let honest, worshipful men of the City make them good cheer, or lend them money, as they commonly do, and what have do they get for their labour ?—either foul, reproachful names, as dunghill churls, cuckold knaves, or else spiteful and slanderous reports, as to be usurers and deceivers of the commonweal, and while some of them may be such indeed, yet I still abhor to hear others, of whom they deserve well, so described.

“But now, to return to your communication, I marvel how Grimalkin, as you term her, if she were so big could eat so much meat at once."

"I do not think," said he that told the tale, "that she did eat it all, although she asked for it all, but took her choice, and then laid the rest by, as we see in the feeding of many things. For example, a wolf would get more than he can eat but will still kill a cow, likewise all other ravenous beasts. Now love and fellowship, and a desire to save their kind are common among cats, I know by experience.

“There was a man that hired a friend of mine to roast a cat alive and promised him for his labour twenty shillings. My friend had a hogshead made, in which he turned a spit on which was stuck a cat. Now, before he had been turning the spit a while, whether it was the cats wool that singed, or else her cry that called them, I cannot tell, but there came such a number of cats, that if I and other hardy labourers who were, had not defended, the hogshead, as strong as it was, could not have kept them out."

"Indeed," said a well-learned man, and one of excellent judgement, that had joined the discussion, "it does appear there is in cats, as in all other kinds of beasts, a certain reason and language, with which they understood one another. But this Grimalkin? I think she is not a cat but a hag, or a witch. Witches have gone often in that likeness; and therefore has come to the proverb that a cat has nine lives, that is to say, a witch may take on her a cat’s body nine times."

"By my faith, Sir, this is strange," said I myself, "that a witch should take on her a cat’s body. I have read that the Petoneses could cause their spirits to take the dead men’s bodies, and the airy spirits which we call demons, (of which kind are Incubi and Lucinbus, Robin-Goodfellow the fairy, and goblins which the misers call Telechins), could, at their pleasure, take upon them any other sorts, but that a woman, being so large a body, should strain herself into the body of a cat, I have not much heard of, nor cannot perceive how it may be, which makes me, I promise you, believe it the less." 

"Well, Master Streamer," said the learned man, "I know you are not so ignorant as you make yourself, but this is your accustomed fashion always to make me believe you were not so well learned as you are, sapiens enim colat scienciam, which worked well for Socrates! I know being skilled as you are in the tongues chiefly called Arabic and Egyptian, and having read so many authors therein, you must be skilful in these matters.

“However, when you speak of the intrusion of a woman’s body into a cat's, you either play Nichoden or the stubborn popish coinser. One would creep into his master's belly again, the other would bring Christ out of Heaven to thrust him into a piece of bread; but as one of them is gross and the other perverse, so I must place you with one of them. Although witches may take upon them the cats bodies, or alter the shape of their or other bodies, yet this is not done by putting their own bodies into a cat's, but rather by bringing their souls for a time out of their bodies and putting them into another body. Alternatively they do this by deluding the sight and fantasies of the seers, as when I make a candle with the brain of a horse and brimstone, the light of the candle makes all kinds of heads appear to be horses heads, yet it does not alter the actual form of a head, but deceives the eye, which, through the false light"

BtC 7/22. Witches and Werewolves and Hermits! Oh My! Back to Ireland

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer is engaged in a discussion about whether people can turn into cats and whether cats can speak. Thomas, a servant who has lived in Ireland, has some germane stories to tell.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: individual story told by another character

Witches, women and cats: the fear of all three are tied together in Beware the Cat. Throughout the ownership of cats is usually ascribed to the woman of the house. The main cat characters (including Mouseslayer who is the main narrator of the third part of the book) are female cats. The abuse of cats mentioned in 6 has sinister parallels with the persecution of women for witchcraft.

What position is the author taking on all this? Beware the Cat is a satire and its aim is the superstitious practices (as Baldwin saw it) of Catholicism. In reality, we know that the reformation did not lead to an end of witch persecution with both Catholic and Protestant European countries becoming even more obsessed with supposed witch conspiracies in the 1580s and beyond.

Baldwin though is mainly mocking these notions as absurd rationalisations. With the case of the Irish werewolves (discussed below) the original folklore is that the family have a curse that dates back to St Patrick. Rather than accept that possibility an attempted explanation is given that witches just make people think they’ve changed into another animal and that the whole werewolf issue is caused by a family succession of witches who trick this hapless family into thinking they’ve become wolves. The possibility that the core story isn’t true and there aren’t any actual Irish seven-year werewolves doesn’t occur to anybody. Somehow Baldwin manages to brilliantly satirise some Internet conspiracy forums 450 years in advance.

The legend of Irish werewolves is genuine (although, you know, not actually true) and you can read about it via Wikipedia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolves_of_Ossory

Thomas Discusses Seven-Year Wolves

Then the man that had been in Ireland spoke, "I cannot tell, Sir, by what means witches do change their own likeness and the shapes of other things, but I have heard of so many and seen so much myself that they do it. For in Ireland, as they have been in England, witches are for fear held in high reverence; they be so cunning that they can change the shapes of things as they list at their pleasure, and so deceived the people thereby that an Act was made in Ireland that no man should buy any red swine. The cause was this,—the witches used to send to the markets many red swine, fair and fat to see and in that form they would stay for some time but if it chanced the buyer of the red swine were to bring them to any water, immediately the red swine turned back into either wisps of hay, straw, old rotten boards, or such like trumpery. By this means they lost the money or such other goods they had given in exchange for them.

“There is also in Ireland a belief that some man or woman at the end of every seven years would turn into a wolf, and would then live as a wolf in the woods for the next seven years. If they live out the time, they return to their own form again. This is a penance they say, placed on them by St. Patrick for some wickedness of their ancestors. A man that I left alive in Ireland told me this was true and he himself had performed this seven years penance, but his wife had been slain, while she was still a wolf, in her last year. This man spoke to many men whose cattle he had worried, and whose bodies he had assailed while he was a wolf and gave evident tokens, and showed such scars of wounds which other men had given him, both in his man’s shape before he was a wolf, and in his wolfs shape since. These scars all appeared upon his skin so that it was evident to all men. The Bishop also said (upon whose grant it was recorded and registered) that the matter was undoubtedly past all doubt.

“I am sure, you are not ignorant of the hermit who, as St. Austin writes, would ride on a witch, in the form of an ass, to market. These witches made their swine, and how folks were turned from shape to shape, whether by some ointment whose clearness deceived men’s sights, till either the water washed away the ointment, or else that the clearness of the water excelled the clearness of the ointment, and so betrayed the operation of it. I am sure that it was the spirits called demons, forced by enchantments which move those bodies, till chance of their shapes discerned caused them. The transformation of the wolves is either miraculous, as Nesmans lepry in the stock of Gekin, or else it is shameful crafty malicious sorcery; and as the one way is unsearchable. So I think this might never be found how it is done the other way.

“The witches are by nature exceedingly malicious. If it was to chance that one witch for displeasure with this warlike nation gave her daughter charge in her death bed, when she taught her the science, (for until they are dying, witches never teach it, nor then but to their eldest or best beloved daughter,) that she should every seven years end make some ointment, which for seven years might be in force against all other charms to represent to men’s eyes the shape of a wolf, and in the right season to go herself in the likeness of a mare, or some other right form, and anoint therewith the bodies of some couple of that kindred which she hated, and that after her time she should charge her daughter to observe the same, and to charge her daughter after her to do the like for ever. So that this charge is given always by tradition with the science, and so is continued and observed by this witches offspring; by whom two of this kindred (as it may be supposed), one from every seven, for seven years space, turned into wolves."

BtC 8/22. The First Part Draws to a Close

Previously on Beware the Cat: After being kept up at night by the howling of cats, Mr Streamer has been discussing magical cats, witches and werewolves with the people in his lodging. He is begining to draw some spooky conclusions.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

At last, Mr Streamer tells us that the name of the guy who had been in Ireland is Thomas. This is the point when English literature discovers that it is much easier to tell stories if the people in them have names. Top tip from the sixteenth century all you budding writers out there!

We also will learn what Thomas’s ultimate fate will be. Spoiler: it is an unfortunate one.

As I mentioned previously, Bladwin neatly satirises a style of reasoning that is all too familiar. Thomas is not a reliable witness (ignoring, for the moment, that Mr Streamer is also an unreliable narrator, cooked up by Baldwin who is also unreliable) but the basic truth of his stories are not doubted. They are accepted as relevant data that people then try to fit into their world view.

In fannish circles it is akin to the way we might discuss events in-universe and attempt to address plot holes. While also sorts of theories might be offered as to why the Death Star had such a ludicrous weakness in Star Wars: A New Hope, an in-universe explanation that maybe there was no Death Star and it was just a ludicrous story told by an ageing Luke Skywalker no different from his other less filmed story “the time I had to balance band of sand people on a Jawa that was standing on my head”, would be regarded as deeply unsatisfactory. An in-universe explanation assumes that events are basically true by virtue of being events - although the hidden mechanics of those events are mutable.

Within fiction such an approach is fun and exercises the imagination. In reality such an approach is the road to conspiracy theories and confusion. The question “did this event actually happen?”* goes unquestioned regardless of how ludicrous it is.

*[or something similar]

Mr Streamer Discusses Thomas’s Tales

After I had heard these tales, and that reasoning given by the teller ; “Thomas,” said I, (for that was his name - he died afterwards of a disease which he caught in Newgate, where he was gaoled for a time on suspicion of magic, because he had desired a prisoner to promise his soul after he was hanged) “I perceive now the old proverb is true, the still sow eats up all the draft. You go and behave yourself so simply that a man would think you were but a sot, but you have uttered such proof of a natural knowledge in this your brief tale as I think (except myself and few more the best learned alive) none could have done the like.

"You say your pleasure, Master Streamer," said Thomas, "as for me I have said nothing but that I have seen, and where of any man might conjecture as I do."

"You have spoke full well," said he that gave occasion of this tale, "and your conjectures are quite reasonable. By ointments (as you suppose) the Irish witches do make the form of swine and wolves appear to all men’s sight, so think I that by the like power, English witches and Irish witches may and do turn themselves into cats. I have heard it told, while I was in the University, by a credible clerk of Oxford, that in the days when he was a child an old woman was brought before the official and accused of being a witch, who, in the likeness of a cat, would go into her neighbours house and steal things. This complaint was proved true by a the woman’s skin, which her accusers, with a fire-brand that they hurled at her had singed while she went a thieving in her cats likeness.

“To conclude as I began, I think that the cat which you call Grimalkin, whose name confirms my conjecture, for Malkin is a woman’s name. Witnesses the proverb, there be more maids then Malkin. I think that it was a witch in a cats likeness, and that for the wit and craft of her other natural cats, that were not so wise, have had her and her race in reverence among them, thinking her to be but a mere cat as they themselves were. Like as we silly fools for a long time reverenced the Pope for his sly and crafty juggling, thinking him to have been but a man (though much holier than we ourselves were), whereas, indeed, he was a very incarnated devil, like as this Grimalkin was an enchanted witch."

"Why then, Sir," said I, "do you think the natural cats have wit, and that they understand one another?"

"What else, Mr Streamer," said he, "there is no kind of sensible creatures but have reason and understanding, whereby each understands other. Does there in some parts so excel that the considerations of this moved Pythagoras (as you know) to believe and affirm that after death men’s souls went into beasts, and beasts souls into men, every one according to his desert in his former body. Although his opinions be false, yet that which drew him to it is evident and true, and that is the wit and reason of many beasts; and again the dull, beastly, brutish ignorance of many men. But that beasts understand one another, and fowls likewise we see by daily experience in the story of the Bishop of Alexandra. He found the means either through diligence so to mark them, or else through magic natural, so to enhance his sensible power, (either by purging his brain by dry drinks and fumes, or else to augment the brains of his power perceptible by other natural medicines) that he understood all kinds of creature by their voices. For example, sitting at dinner in a house among his friends, he hear a sparrow that came fleeing and chirping to others that were about the house, and smiled to himself to hear her. When one of the company desired to know why he smiled, he said at the sparrows tale; 'for she told them,' said he, 'that in the highway, not a quarter of a mile hence, a sack of wheat is even now fallen off a horse-back and broken, and all the wheat has run out, and therefore bids them come thither to dinner,' and when the guests,, sent to check the story, they found it even as he had told them."

When this tale was ended the clock struck nine, whereupon old Thomas, because he had to go to his lodging, took his leave and departed; the rest of the company went either to their business or to their beds.

And I went straight to my chamber, and took a book in my hand to study, but my thoughts of these tales so troubled me that I could think of nothing else, and so examined more narrowly what every man had said.

BtC 9/22. Aside: Is Beware the Cat a Novel?

If you recall, dear reader, the original question that led me to Beware the Cat was the identity of the first English novel. Does Beware the Cat count as the first English novel?

At least one person has made a serious claim that it is:

“Streamer's narrative of his experience, as reported by Baldwin, is the first English novel, or if you prefer, the earliest original work of longer prose fiction in English. It may appear surprising, but it is nevertheless true, that before Baldwin's time all works of prose fiction in English of more than short-story length had been translations or adaptations, mainly from Latin or French, and not original.” "Beware the Cat" and the Beginnings of English Fiction by William A. Ringler, Jr. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Winter, 1979), pp. 113-126 Published by Duke University Press http://www.jstor.org/stable/1345439

Ringler modifies his claim from ‘novel’ to ‘longer prose fiction’ which is more defensible. However, Beware the Cat fails to be a novel.

1. It is too short to really be called a novel.

2. While there is a sort of overall plot (Mr Streamer investigating talking cats) it is really just a bunch of stories connected together.

However, it is not lacking in either structure or sophistication. Mr Streamer is wonderfully characterised by showing how he speaks and how he perceives himself. The other narrators get their own distinct voices and motivations.

Importantly the reader is expected to do a lot of the work. You are not being told a straightforward story. Narrators do not tell the truth (although they rarely lie) and are often inconsistent and/or hypocritical.

So arguably this is a proto-novel - not entirely a novel in either length of structure but containing many of the essential features of a novel and in a language that is understandable (on the whole) by speakers of modern English.

BtC 10/22. On to the Second Part

Previously on Beware the Cat: In part one Mr Streamer tells his friend of a time he was lodging at a printers. After being kept awake by howling cats he is told tales by people in the house of magical cats. After the stories, Mr Streamer has gone to bed still thinking about the extraordinary stories of cats, witches and werewolves.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

In the second major section of the book, Mr Streamer goes from a passive (and easily distracted) narrator to an active protagonist.

Because there are no Layer 3 narrators in this section, the text is dominated by Mr Streamer’s strange style of speech. There are a lot of (apparently wrong) astrological references and anything that can be named with a classical allusion is. Once you get into the rhythm of his language it is really funny.

Mr Streamer is an Ignatius J Reilly like figure convinced by strange ideas and obsessed with a misplaced faith in classical thinkers.

The howling cats on the roof of Aldersgate and the ideas from the stories he was told now combine to form an obsession, which lead him to do the strangest things.

THE SECOND PART OF MR STREAMER’S ORATION.

I had not been long in this contemplation when the cats, whose crying the night before had been cause of all that which I have told you, were assembled again in the roof of Aldersgate where the dead men’s quarters were set up. After the same sort of actions as they did the night before ; one sang in one tune, then another in another, and even such another service as my Lord Chappell upon the scaffold sang before the king. They observed no musical chords, neither diateparrian, diapentic, or diapason ; and yet, one cat, groaning as a bear does when dogs are let slip at him, sang out so low and so loud a base that, in comparison of another cat which crying like a young child squealed out the shrieking treble, it might be well accounted a double diapason.

So that I might see better the cause of that assembly and by their gestures perceive part of their meaning, I went softly into a chamber which had a window that looks onto the Aldersgate roof. In the dark standing closely, I viewed through the trellis as well as I could all their gestures and behaviours, and I promise you it was a thing worth marking, to see what countenances, yes, and what order was among them.

One cat, which was a mighty big one, grey haired, brisk bearded, and having broad eyes which shone and sparkled like two stars, sat in the midst, and on either side of her sat another, and before her stood three more. One mewed continually, except when the great cat groaned, and whenever the great cat was done groaning, this mewing cat began again, first stretching out her neck, as it were making beckonings to them which sat. Often in the midst of this cat’s mewing all the rest would howl forth then hush again as if they were laughing at something which they heard the other cat declare.

I watched them from ten until it was twelve o clock. At this time, whether it was a vessel in the kitchen below, or some board in the printing house I cannot tell, but something fell with such a noise that all the cats ran up upon the house. Then I, fearing lest any of them looking to see what had fallen might find me there, I ran into my chamber quickly. Finding my lamp still burning I set me down upon my bed, and thought upon the doings of those cats. By and by I deemed that the grey cat, which had sat in the middle, was the chief, and sat as judge among the rest, and that the cat which continually mewed declared some matters or made account to her of something.

I was caught with such a desire to know what the mewling cat had said, that I could not sleep at all that night, but lay about devising by what means I might learn to understand them. Calling to mind what I had read in the works of Albertus Magnus on a way to be able to understand birds voices, I ought in my library for the like book, and greedily read it over. While reading I came to a passage that stated "Si vis voces avium intelligere,”

Lord, how glad I was to find this! When I had thoroughly marked the description of the medium, and considered the nature and power of everything there in, and how and upon what it wrought, I devised how with part of those things and addition of others, with like virtue and operations, to make a medicine to serve my purpose.

BtC 11/22. Magic potions and a hedgehog

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer has been secretly watching the cats on the roof of Aldersgate. He is determined to discover what they are talking about and so intends to make a magic potion that will allow him to understand the speech of animals.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Albertus Magnus was a medieval scholar and Aristotlean who was later canonised (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus ). Yes, of course, Aristotle was going to come into this story at some point! For those playing the Aristotle drinking game, you may now have a drink. Notably, he was the teacher and mentor of Thomas Aquinas but while Aquinas is more famous for his application of Aristotle’s ideas to Catholic theology, Magnus followed more directly in Aristotle’s footsteps.

Magnus wrote on a wide range of subjects (just as Aristotle did) encompassing areas that we would now regard as the natural sciences. As such his posthumous reputation was as a man of great knowledge and hence also a man of great magical or alchemical knowledge. Consequently, later works were often attributed to him in the hope of raising their prestige.

As far as I know, he couldn’t talk to cats or understand their speech.

One of my favourite bits is in this next section. Mr Streamer goes hunting for a hedgehog, persuades a couple of hunters to give him a dead fox and rabbit but then angers them for saying the word “hedgehog”. He also get’s attacked by a random hawk on the way home via Islington. I’ve always had my suspicions about Islington.

The Next Morning Mr Streamer Goes Looking for a Hedgehog

As soon as restless Phoebus had come up out of the smoking sea and had shaken his golden coloured beams which had been all the night long in Tethis's moist bosom, had dropped off his silver sweat into lap, and kissing fair Aurora with glowing mouth, had driven from her the adououtese Lucifer, and was mounted so high to look upon Europe that all the height of Mile End steeple he espied me through the glass window, laying upon my bed ; up I arose, and got me abroad to seek for such things as might serve for the earnest business.

Because you are all my friends here, I will hide nothing from you, but declare point by point how I went about both making and taking my potion.

"If thou wilt understand," says Albertus Magnus, "the ways of birds or of beasts, take two in thy company, and upon Simon and Jude’s day, early in the morning, get thee with hounds into a certain wood, and the first beast that thou meetest take and prepare with the heart of a fox, and thou shalt have thy purpose; and whosoever thou kissed shall understand them as well as thyself."

Because his writing here is doubtful, because he says, "quiddam nemus, a certain wood," and because I know three men (not many years past) who when they went about this hunting were so afraid, whether with an evil spirit or with their own imagination I cannot tell, but home they came with their hair standing on end, and some have been the worse ever since (and their hounds likewise). Seeing also that it was so long until St. Judes day, therefore I determined not to hunt at all; but decided that the beast that I should take was a hedgehog which at that time of the year is easily found. Knowing that the flesh of the hedgehog is by nature full of natural heat, and therefore that the parts being eaten must expel gross matters and subtle the brain, by the like power it engendered fine blood and helped much both against gout and the cramp, I got me forth to St. Johns Wood. Not two days before I had seen a hedgehog there.

By the way, as I went I met with some hunters who had that morning killed a fox and three hares, who gave me a hare and the fox’s whole body but also six smart lashes with a slip! I had asked them, you see, if they had seen anywhere a hedgehog that morning. Although my tale is otherwise long, I would speak my mind of the wicked reaction of these foolish hunters, for they are like the papists, which for speaking good and true words punish good and honest men! Are not apes, owls, and cuckoos, bears, and urchins God’s good creatures? Why then is it not lawful to name them? If they say it brings ill luck in the game, then are they unlucky, idolatrous, miscreant infidels, and have no true belief in Gods providence! I reject their superstitious hearts, for my buttocks did bear the burden of their misbelief, but yet I thank them again for the fox and the hare which they gave me.

With the two hounds at my girdle, I went a hunting till, indeed, under a hedge, in a hole of the earth, by the root of a hollow tree, I found a hedgehog with a bundle of crabs about him, whom I killed straight with my knife, saying, "Shanse swashmelt gorgona fifcud!” With my other beasts, I hung him at my girdle and came home as fast as I could. But when I came close to Islington, in the place commonly called St. Johns field, a kite, presumably very hungry, spied at my back the skinless fox, and thinking to have had a morsel, flew at it so eagerly that one of his claws was entered so deep that before he could loosen it I drew out my knife and killed him, saying, "Samot sheley slutsthoon fiscud!” To make up the mess I brought the kite home with the rest.

BtC 12/22. Don’t Try This at Home

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer is trying to make a magical medicine that will allow to him understand cats. After some adventures he has collected a dead hedgehog and some other animals.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

I’m including two sections here. It goes on a bit and is very heavy on Mr Streamer’s detailed erudite nonsense and not for the faint-hearted. Hard going at times as it really isn’t meant to make sense. Apparently many of the alchemical and astrological references are garbled and incorrect versions of genuine sixteenth-century alchemical beliefs. The best bit are the detailed instructions for making some weird ear pillows using a fox tongue marinated in wine and then fried. Its like John C Wright doing a Heston Blumenthal impression.

Detailed instructions are given in the next few sections into how to make a set of substances that will give you superhuman hearing. Don’t try them - they sound gross.

Mr Streamer Makes His Medicine

Back at my lodgings I laid the dead animals out. Thomas (who I told you about earlier) brought me a dead cat, which for doing evil things they had that morning caught in a snare set for her two days earlier, which was so exceedingly fat that after I had taken some of the grease, the inwards and the head, to make (as I made Thomas believe) a medicine for the gout, they parboiled the rest, and at night (crusted and fared with good herbs) did eat it up every morsel, and it was as good meat as was or could be eaten.

But now mark, once Thomas had departed with the rest of the cat, I shut my chamber door to me and flayed the hedgehog, wishing often that Dr Nicholas or some other expert physician could make the dissection using their better knowledge of the anatomy. The flesh I washed clean and put it in a pot and with white coin Mellisopoholus or Motism, (commonly called balsam), rosemary water, being four parts of the first and two of the second. I made a broth and set it on a fire and lighted it, sitting it on a limbic, with a glass at the end, near the mouth of the pot, to receive the water that distilled from it. I had a pint of wine which I put in the pot, then, because it was about the solstitium. and that in confections the hours of the planets for the better operation must be observed, I waited until ten o’clock before dinner at which time Mercury begins his lucky reign. Then I took a piece of the cats liver, a piece of the kidneys, a piece of the milt, and the whole heart, the foxes heart and the lights, the hares brain, the kites maw, and the urchins kidneys. All these I beat in a mortar until they were in small pieces. I then made a cake of it and baked it upon a whole stone until it was dry like bread. While this was baking I took seven parts of the cat’s grease, and as much of her brain, and five hairs of her beard, three black and two grey, three parts of the fox’s grease, as much of the brain, with the hooves of his left feet, the like portion of the urchin’s grease and brain with his stones, all the kite’s brain with all the marrow of her bones, the juice of her heart, her upper beak, and the middle claw of her left foot, the fat of the hare’s kidneys, and the juice of his right shoulder bone. All these things I pounded together in a mortar in the space of an hour, and then I put it all in a cloth and hung it near a basin in the sun. Out of this dropped, within four hours, about a half a point of oil, very fine and clear. I then took the galls of all these beasts, and the kites too, and served them likewise, keeping the liquors that dropped from them.

Mr Streamer Consumes the Medicine and Makes More

At twelve o’clock, when the sun began his platenical dominion, I went to dinner, but I ate no meat except the boiled hedgehog. My bread was the cake mentioned before. My drink was the distillation of the hedgehog’s broth, which was exceedingly strong and pleasant in taste and savour. After I had dined well, my head felt so heavy that I could not choose but to sleep for awhile.

After I woke up again, which was within an hour, from my mouth and my nose came exceedingly such yellow, white, and tawny stuff as I never saw before, nor thought that any such could be in man’s body. When a pint of this stuff had come forth, my rheum ceased, and my head and all my body was in exceeding good temper, and a thousand things which I had not thought in twenty years before came so freshly to my mind as if it had been then presently done, heard, or seen. I perceived that my brain (chiefly the function of memory) was marvellously well purged, and my imagination also was so fresh. So much so that I could show a probable reason what, and in what sort, and upon what matter everything which I had taken had wrought, and the cause why.

To be occupied after my sleep, I cast away the carcass of the fox and of the kite, with all the other garbage, saving the tongues and the ears, which were very necessary for my purpose. This is how I prepared them,—I took all the ears and scalded off the hair, then steeped them in a mortar, and when they were all a dry jelly I put in a handful of rue, fennel, lowachtsic, and leek blades, and pounded them afresh. I then divided all the matter into two equal parts, and made two little pillows and stuffed them therewith, and when Saturn’s dry hour of dominion approached, I fried these pillows in good oil olive and laid them hot to mine ears, (one to each ear ), and kept them there until nine a clock at night. This helped to comfort my powers of understanding but because as I perceived the cell perceptible of my brain intelligible was yet so gross by means that the filmy panicle coming from dura mater made to stroil opilations by engrossing the pores and conduits imaginative, I desired to help that what this gargaristical fume whose subtle assertion is wonderful. So I took the cat’s, the fox’s, and the kite’s tongues and soaked them in wine until well near to jelly and then I took them out of the wine and put them in a mortar, and added to them an ounce of cat’s dung an ounce, mustard seed, garlic, and pepper. Then beating this altogether until incorporated, I made lozenges out of the mixture.

And at six a clock at night, I had supper with the rest of the meat which I left uneaten at dinner. When Mercury's reign approached, which was about two hours later, I drank a great draft of my stilled water, and anointed my head all over with the oil I had made, and then with the water which had come out of the galls I washed my eyes. So that humours would ascend into my head by evaporation of my veins through the chin bone, I took an ounce of alhakghi powder, which I had for a like purpose not two days afore bought at the apothecary. With this, I rubbed and chafed my back from the neck down to the middle. I then heated it in a frying pan my pillows afresh and laid them on my ears, and tied a kerchief about my head.

BtC 13/22. Turn on, Tune in, Drop out Tudor Style

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer has made a magical medicine that will allow to him understand cats.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Warning: people will be eating cat poo in today’s instalment. If you don’t want to read "By God’s bones it is a cats turd!” then now is the time to read something else.

This part is tremendous writing. Mr Streamer gains superhuman hearing as a consequence of all the freaky stuff he either consumed or stuck as pillows on his hears. Alternatively, Mr Streamer is as a high as a a very high hippy at Woodstock listening to Jimi Hendrix.

Streamer can hear planets, women in nearby towns calling their husband “cuckolds” and is freaked out by the church bell of St Botolph’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Botolph's,_Aldersgate ). When the servants come to look for him, he things he is being chased by devils.

This is very much a writer having fun with words particularly when it comes to Mr Streamer listing all the sounds he can hear: “singing of swans, ringing of pans, crowing of cocks, sowing of socks, cackling of hens, scrapling of pens, heaping of mice, trulling of dice, curling of frogs and toads in the bogs, churking of crickets, shutting of wickets, scritching of owls, fluttering of fowls, routing of knaves, snorting of slaves, farting of churls, fisling of girls"

The Effect of the Medicine on Mr Streamer

With my lozenges in a box, I went out among the servants - one of whom was a shrewd boy, that wanted to know what was in my box. I, to sauce him after his sauciness, called them “prescienciall pills”, affirming that whoever might eat one of them should not only understand wonders, but also make prophecies. On hearing this the boy was exceedingly earnest in entreating me to give him one, and when at last very loathly (as it seemed) I granted his request, he took a lozenge and put it in his mouth and chewed it. When the fume ascended in his mouth he began to spattle and spit, saying, "By God’s bones it is a cats turd!”

At this everybody laughed, and so too did I, verifying it to be as he said, and that he was a prophet but so that he might not spew too much, I also put a lozenge in my mouth and kept it under my tongue, showing that it was not evil. While I did this I thought I heard someone cry with a loud voice, "What, Isegrim! what, Isegrim !" I asked the servants whose name was Isegrim, saying that someone was calling him, but the servants said that they knew nobody of the name, nor had they heard anybody call.

"No," said I, for the voice still called "hear you nobody?" 

"We hear nothing but a cat," said they, "which mewed alone on the roof."

When I saw it was so indeed, and that I understood what the cat said, glad was I as anyone alive, and taking my leave of them as though I would to bed straight, I went into my chamber. Because the hour of Saturn’s cold dominion approached I put on my gown and got myself to the place in which I had viewed the cats the night before. Once I had settled myself where I might conveniently hear and see all things done in the Aldersgate roof, the cat still cried out for “Isegrim”. I put into my two nostrils two lozenges, and into my mouth another two lozenges, one above my tongue, the other under. I took off my left shoe because of Jupiter’s appropinquosion, and laid the fox tail under my foot.

To hear better I took off my pillows, from my ears, and then listened and viewed as attentively as I could. The pellicils or filmy vein that lies within the bottom of my ear hole, from where veins carry the sound to the senses, was with this medicine in my pillows so purged and parched, or at least dried, that the least moving of the air, whether struck with breath or with living creatures, (which we call voices) or with the moving of dead, as winds, waters, trees, carts, falling of stones, etc. (which are named noises), sounded so shrill in my head, by reverberations of my final films, that the sound of them altogether was so disordered and monstrous that I could discern not one from the other, save only the harmony of the moving of the spheres which noise excelled all other as much both in pleasance and shrill bigness of sound as the zodiac itself. In comparison of the most bass of this noise, which is the moving of Saturn by means of this huge compass, the highest whistling of the wind, or any other organ pipes (whose sounds I heard issued together,) appeared but a low base, and yet was those a high treble to the voice of beasts which as a mean the running of rivers was a tenor, and the boiling of the sea, and the cataracts or gulf is a goodly base, and the rushing, rising, and falling of the clouds a deep diapason.

While I listened to this broil, labouring to discern both voices and noises a sunder, I had such a mixture as I think was never in Chaucer's "House of Fame," for there was nothing within an hundred mile of me down on my side (for from so far but no farther the air may come because of obliquacion,) but I heard it as well as if I had been by it, and discern all voices, but by means of noises understood none.

Lord, what a fuss women made in their beds ; some scolding, some laughing, some singing to their sucking children, which made a woeful noise with their continual crying, and one shrewd wife, a great way off (I think in St. Albans), called her husband cuckold as loud and shrilly that I heard it plain, and would have heard the rest, but could not because of the barking of dogs, grunting of hogs, wailing of cats, rumbling of rats, gaggleing of geese, humming of bees, rousing of bucks, gaggling of ducks, singing of swans, ringing of pans, crowing of cocks, sowing of socks, cackling of hens, scrapling of pens, heaping of mice, trulling of dice, curling of frogs and toads in the bogs, churking of crickets, shutting of wickets, scritching of owls, fluttering of fowls, routing of knaves, snorting of slaves, farting of churls, fisling of girls, with many things else ; as ringing of bells, counting of coins, mounting of groins, whispering of lovers, springling of plovers, groning and spinning, baking and brewing, scratching and rubbing, watching and shrugging, with such a sort of commixed noises as could deafen anybody to have heard, and much more.

Seeing that the peanieles of my ears were made so fine and stiff by my medicine, and that by the temperate heat of the things there, that like a tabard dried before the fire, or else a lute string shrunk by heat, never they were incomparably amended in receiving and yielding the shrillness of any touching sounds. While I was earnestly harkening (as I said) to hear the women, minding nothing else, the greatest bell in St. Botolph steeple, which is hard by, was tolled for some rich lady that then lay in passing. The sound came with such a rumble into my ear, that I thought all the devils in hell had broken loose, and where come about me. I was so afraid that when I felt the foxtail under my feet (which through fear I had forgot) I deemed it had been the devil indeed ; and therefore I cried as loud as ever I could, "The devil, the devil!"

When some of the fellows, raised by my noise, had sought me in my chamber and found me not there, they went seeking about, calling to one another, "Where is he? I cannot find Mr Streamer." This noise and stir of them was so great in my ears that I thought they were devils indeed that sought and asked for me. Therefore I crept close into a corner and hid, saying many good prayers to save me from them; and because that noise was so terrible that I could not abide it, I thought best to stop mine ears, thinking I should then be less afraid. And as I was there about, a crow, which was most likely nodding asleep in the chimney top, fell down into the chimney over my head. The fluttering fall made such a noise that when I felt the crow’s feet over my head I thought then the devil had come indeed and seized me; and when I threw up my head to save myself, and touched the crow, he called me knave in his tongue. I swooned in fear, and when I had come to my sense again the crow had flown into the chamber roof, and there he sat all night.

Then took I my pillows to stop my ears, for the rabble that the servants made I still took for the devil, it was so great and shrill. I had no sooner put them on but by and by I heard it was the servants which sought for me, and that I was deceived through my clearness of hearing. For the bell which put me in all this fear (for which I have never loved bells since) tolled still, and I perceived well enough what it was; and seeing that the servants would not leave calling and seeking till they found me, I went down to them and told them that a cat had been in my chamber and had frightened me, whereupon they went to bed again, and I returned to my watching place.

BtC 14/22. Aside. The Genre Styles of Beware the Cat

We are two-thirds the way through!

But what kind of story is this?

The opening third of the story may have a sense of the horror story about it but the story overall is dominated by comedy. Even the story of the Irish brigand encountering Grimalkin has a sense of the ridiculousness about it.

Mr Streamer is always a figure of fun but there is little straight mockery of him (although many sardonic comments from Baldwin in the margins - which I haven’t included). In essays I’ve read on Beware the Cat, the assumption is that Mr Streamer is possibly fictitious and possibly a composite of other people. However, I wonder if Baldwin’s comments about Mr Streamer in the opening letter are more genuine than they appear:

I have written for your mastership’s pleasure one of the stories which Mr. Streamer told last Christmas - which you so would have heard reported by Mr Ferrers himself. Although I am unable to tell it as pleasantly as he could, I have nearly used both the order and words of him that spoke them. I doubt not that he and Mr. Willet shall in the reading think they hear Mr Streamer speak, and he himself shall doubt whether he speaks.

I wonder if Mr Streamer was an act rather than a composite character - somebody who tells tall tales in character? If so, whether the framing device is not so much a fiction as a description of when Baldwin played at being Mr Streamer for the entertainment of his room mates.

Amid the comedy there are darker themes. The apparent trial in the third part of the story of Mouseslayer the cat, is because she defended herself from a sexual assault. Early in part one, Mr Streamer expresses his disgust with the practice of displaying the bodies of executed people. The book only touches on these tangentially but they are at odds with the more comedic elements.

The book is known to be satire and the author makes use of allegory but there are no simple correspondences. There are devout but hypocritical Catholic women in part three but they aren’t straight parodies of the future Queen Mary. Allegory is not used systematically and any given character may move express Catholic sentiments or anti-Catholic ones, even Mr Streamer (e.g. comparing the superstitious hunters to papists).

BtC 15/22. Mouseslayer takes over

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer has gained superhuman hearing. He finds a place where he can spy on the cats that meet on the roof of Aldersgate.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: The council of cats

Part three of Beware the Cat is a change in voice, pace and style. The anti-Catholic themes are more overt and the comedy is more conventional. Aside from the very start of part three, Mr Streamer’s voice takes a back seat and instead we here from a new character: Mouseslayer the cat.

Mouseslayer is defending herself in front of some sort of assembly of cats. The charge is that she refused to mate with the cat called Catchrat (who we learn later is not a very nice cat by any standard). In fact, the trial aspect plays little role in what follows. Instead, Mouseslayer recounts various stories from her life.

Below, I include the initial narration from Mr Streamer and the beginnings of the meeting of the cats. Next up will be Mouseslayer’s first story.

THE THIRD PART OF MR STREAMERS ORATION.

BY this time waning Cynthia had come which the day before had filled her growing horns and freshly yielded forth her brother light, which the reverberation of Thetis trembling face, now full by means of spring, had fully cast upon her ; where she must needs lose every day more and more, by means Thetis sullen face would make her to cast beyond her those raids which before the full the spring had cause her to throw short, like as with a crystal glass a man may by the placing of it either high or low so cast the sun or a candle light after any round glass of water, that it shall make the light thereof, both in waxing and waning, to counterfeit the moon.

You should understand, chiefly you Mr. Willet, as my lord’s astronomer, that all our ancestors have failed in knowledge of natural causes. It is not the moon that causes the sea to ebb and flow, but the ebbing and flowing of the sea that is the cause of the moons both waxing and waning. For the moon light is nothing save the shining of the sun cast into the element by the opposition of the sea - as also the stars are nothing else but the sun light reflected upon the face of rivers and cast upon the crystalline heaven, which because rivers always keep like course, therefore are the stars always of one bigness ; as for the course of the stars from east to west, is natural by means of the suns like moving, but in that they ascend and descend, that is, sometimes come northward and sometimes go southward, that is caused also by the suns being either on this side or on the other side likenlightical. The like reason followed for the poles not moving, and that is the situation of those rivers or dead seas which cast them, and the roundness and eg form of the firmament.

But let this pass (although in my book of heaven and hell, shall plainly not only declared, but both by reason and exposition proved) I will come again to my matter when Cythera, I say, as following her brothers steps, looked in at my chamber window and saw me neither in my bed nor at my book, she hide me apace into the south, and at a little hole in the house roof peeped in and saw me where I was set to hearken to the cats, and by this time all the cats which were there the night before were assembled, with many others. Only the great grey cat was not present at first but as soon as he arrived, all the other cats did showed their respect, as they did the night before. And when he was set, he began speaking in his language, which I understood as well as if he had spoken English.

The Great Grey Cat Convenes

"Ah my dear friends and fellows, you may say I have been a lingerer this night, and that I have tarried too long, but you must pardon me for I could come no sooner. When this evening I went into a barrel, where there was much good meat, to steal my supper, there came a wench. Not thinking I had been there, she pushed the lid down, and I had much to do to get out. Also in the way as I came here, over the house tops in the gutter, there were thieves breaking into a window, who scared me so much that I lost my way and fell down into the street, and had much to do to escape some dogs.

But seeing that by the grace of Hagat and Hag I am now here, although I perceive by the tail of the great bear and by alhabar, which are now somewhat southward, that the fifth hour of night approaches, yet seeing this is the last night of my charge, and that to-morrow I must again to my lord Crammoloch," (at this all the cats spread out their tails, and cried, "Hagat and Hag, save him !") "Speak now, good Mouseslayer, and that time which my misfortune has lost, recover again by the briefness of your talk." 

"I will, my lord," quote Mouseslayer. This was the cat which I told you about who stood before the great cat the night before continually mewing, who, in her language and with her tail, had made curtsey,

Mouseslayer shrunk in her neck and said, "By virtue of your commission from my lord Crammoloch (whose life Hagat and Hag defend), who by inheritance and our free election enjoyed the empire of his traitorously murdered mother, the goddess Grimalkin, you his chief counsellor, my lord Grisard, with Isegrim and Polinoers your assistants ; upon a complaint put up in your high deeds by that false accuser Catchrat, (who bears me malice because I refused his lecherously offered delights,) have caused me to come before this honourable company to declare my whole life since the blind days of my kitlinghood. You remember, I trust, how in the past two nights I have told you of my life for four years space, so you might perceive how I behaved all that time. I shall begin where I left off last night…”

BtC 16/22. Talking Cats and Transubstantiation

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mouseslayer the Cat has been called before the Great Grey Cat and is telling the assembled cats her lifestory.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: The council of cats

Layer 4: Mouseslayer’s stories

The split of Protestantism from Catholicism was fuelled by many things from socio-political change to expedient convenience for monarchs. However, theological disputes helped frame those issues in terms of differences in faith. For Catholics the sacrament of the Eucharist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist ) involved a literal change of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. This idea had been rejected by protestant theologians including Martin Luther.

At the time that Beware the Cat was written the Catholic Church had confirmed its doctrine on transubstantiation at the Council of Trent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent ). Meanwhile the doctrine had been rejected as part of the protestant reforms in England. Later during Elizabeth’s reign the Church of England would officially assert that: "Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.” Instead many Anglicans would claim that while there was no literal transformation, Jesus was present (in some spiritual sense). This theological debate contnues to this day - although its much less heated and nobody is either burnt at the stake or has their head chopped off as a consequence.

While not a perfect match, there is some similarity with the discussion in the first part of Beware the Cat as to whether witches literally turn into cats or just put their souls inside an existing cat. I assume that is intentional on Baldwin’s part and it seems a bit sacrilegious even from the protestant perspectives of the time.

Mouseslayer’s first story discusses this sacrament more directly. An old lady is cured of her blindness by a priest saying mass. As told, the story presents the sacrament as having real power. The assembled cats even discuss whether they could make use of priests to ensure that kittens aren’t born blind. The pragmatic Mouseslayer epxlains that she’s tried that experiment and it doesn’t work.

Mouseslayer’s First Story

“You should understand that my lord and lady, whose lives I told you about you last night, had left the city and gone to dwell in the country. They carried me with them, but being thus strange I lost their house, and with Birdhunt, my make, the gentlest in honest venery that ever I met with, went to a town where he dwelt, called Stratford (either Stony upon Tine, or upon Avon, I do not well remember which) where I dwelt for half a year. This was in the time when preachers had leave to speak against the Catholic mass, but it was not forbidden until half a year later. In this time I saw nothing worthy to certify my lord save this, my lady, with whom I dwelt, and her husband were both old, and therefore had to be turned from their rooted beliefs in the mass, which caused young folk, chiefly their sons and a learned kinsman of theirs, to be the more earnest to teach and persuade them. ; When they had almost brought the matter to a good point, I cannot tell how it chanced, but my lady’s sight failed her, and she was so sick that she kept to her bed for two days. So she sent for the parish priest, her old godly father. When all had left her chamber, except she, the priest and me, she told him how sick she was and how blind. Because that she could see nothing, she desired him to pray for her and give her good counsel.

The priest replied thus, "It is no marvel though you be sick and blind in body which suffer your soul willingly to be blinded, you send for me now, but why send you not for me when these new heretics taught you to leave the Catholic belief of Christ's flesh in the sacrament ?’

'Why, Sir,' said she, 'I did send for you once, and when you came they posed you so with holy writ and saints writings, that you could say nothing but call them heretics, and that they had made the New Testament themselves.”

“Ye,” said he, 'but did I not bid you take heed then, and told you how God would plague you?”

“Yes, good Sir,” said she, “you did ; and now, to my pain, find you too true a prophet! But I beseech you forgive me and pray to God for me, and whatsoever you will teach me that will I believe unto the death.”

“Well,' said he, “God refused us sinners that will repent, and, therefore, in any case believe Christ’s flesh, body, soul, and bone, is as it was born of our blessed Lady in the consecrated host; and see that you worship it, pray, and offer to it, for by it many of your friends souls may be brought out of purgatory, which these new heretics say is no place at all, but when their soul’s fire is in it they shall tell me another tale! That you may know that all I say is true, and that the mass can deliver those souls that trust in it from all manner sins, I will by and by say you a mass that shall restore your sight and health.”

Then took he out of his bosom a wafer and called for wine, and then, shutting the door, dressed himself in a surplice, and set upon a table before the bed he laid his posture, and there he said mass. When he came to the Kyrie Eleison, he lifted up the wafer and said to my lady, , “Wipe thine eyes, thou sinful woman, and look upon thy Maker.” 

With that she lifted up herself and saw the wafer, and her sight returned and her health was as well as ever she had before.

When mass was done she thanked God and the priest exceedingly, and he gave charge that she should tell to none of the young folks how she had been helped, for his bishop had throughout the diocese forbidden them to say or sing any mass, but he also commanded her that secretly to tell of it to old honest men and women. By reason of this miracle many are so confirmed in their belief that, although by common law all masses upon penalty have been forbidden, many have them privately and nightly said in their chambers until this day."

The Cats discuss Mouseslayer’s First Story

"Marry, Sir," said another cat called Polinos, "this was either a mighty miracle or else a mischievous subtlety of a majestical minister. If we assume the priest, by magical arts, blinded her not beforehand, and then by like magical sorcery cured her again, it would be good for us to hire him, or other priests, to sing a mass before our kitlings, that they might in their birth be delivered of their blindness. If I hear the priest it should escape me hard but I would have one litter of kittens in some chamber where he used now to say his privy night masses." 

"What need of that," said Mouseslayer, "it would do them no good, for I myself, upon like consideration, kittened since in another mistress chamber of mine where a priest every day said mass, but my kitlings saw no the better, but rather the worse.”

BtC 17/22. The Women in a Cat’s Life

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mouseslayer is recounting her life story to an assembly of cats.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: The council of cats

Layer 4: Mouseslayer’s stories

For those who look out for this kind of thing, there is a triple-goddess theme with Mouseslayer’s three owners. In the first story, she is with an old woman whose blindness is cured by a Catholic mass. In this next story, Mouseslayer is now living with a presumably middle-aged woman who runs a brothel (and who also trades in stolen goods). Her third owner is also in this story - a recently married younger woman.

This second story from Mouseslayer is a sex-comedy of dubious morality. Her owner is secretly a devout Catholic who nightly venerates a picture of the Virgin Mary. She also procures women for men for a fee and entices them into a life of crime.

The plot involves Mouseslayer’s owner attempting to convince a young married woman that it is her moral duty to have sex with another man. To do this she pretends Mouseslayer his her daughter who was turned into a cat for spurning the advances of an admirer. This all leads to a cunningly convoluted argument:

“I gather that though God would have us keep our faith to our husbands, yet rather than any other should die for ourselves, we should not make any conscience to save their lives; for it fared in this point as it does in all other; for as all extremities are vices, so is it a vice, as appeared plainly by the punishment of my daughter, to be extreme in honesty, chastity, or any other kind of virtue.”

Mouseslayer herself takes a dim view of these proceedings and also exacts some revenge on her owner.

Notably, going back to the themes of transubstantiation, the person-turned-into-a-cat theme here is overtly a deception. Mouseslayer is simply a cat - a clever and brave cat but who has no special abilities and certainly isn’t a human.

Mouseslayer’s Second Story

When I heard that the lord with whom I went into the country would go to London to dwell again, I kept the house for a month beforehand so well, that my lady when she went to London carried me with her. When I came to London again, I went to visit my old acquaintance, and when I was great with kitling because I would not be unfurnished of a place to kitten in, I got in favour and household with an old gentlewoman, a widow, with whom I stayed this whole year.

This woman got her living by boarding young gentlemen, for whom she kept fair wenches in store, for whose sake she had more rent. To tell you the truth of her trade it was fine and crafty, and not so dangerous as deceitful. When she had soaked from the young gentlemen all they had then would she would cast them off, and so they fell to cheating. Many of them in the night time would go abroad and bring the next morning home with them sometimes money, sometimes jewels—as rings and chains, sometimes apparel, and sometimes they would come again, cursing their ill fortune, with nothing, save dry blows or wet wounds. Yet whatever they brought my dame would take it, and find the means either so to gauge it so that she would never fetch it again, or else melt it and sell it to the goldsmiths.

Notwithstanding that she used these wicked practices yet was she very holy and religious, and so, even though all images were forbidden, yet kept she one of Our Lady in her coffer. Every night, when everybody had gone to bed, and there were none in her chamber but she and I, she would fetch her out and set her upon her cupboard, and light up two or three wax candles afore her, and then kneel down to her sometimes for a whole hour, crying over her beads, and praying her to be good to her, and to save her and all her guests both from danger and shame, and promising that then she would honour and serve her during her life.

While I was with this woman I was always much cherished and made of, for one night, while she was a praying, I would be playing with her beads, and always catch them as she let them fall, and would sometimes put my head in compass of them and run away with them about my neck, and many times she took great pleasure in this. And so did Our Lady too! My dame would say sometimes to her, 'Yes, blessed Lady, I know thou hears me, by thy smiling at my cat.'

Never did my dame do me any hurt save once, and that I was even with her for. There was a gentleman, one of her boarders, much enamoured in the beauty of a merchant man’s wife in the city, whom he could by no means prevail to satisfy his lust. He made her great banquets, offered her rich apparel, and all kinds of precious jewels (which usually women delight in), and large sums of money (which can corrupt even the gods themselves) but he could by no means alter her mind because she esteemed her good name and honesty. Forced through desire of that which he could not but long for, and so much the more cause it was most earnestly denied him, he spoke his mind to my dame, and entreated her to aid him to win this young woman’s favour, and promised her for her labour whatever she would require. Whereupon my dame, which was taken for as honest as any in the city, found the means to bring the young woman to a dinner. Before the young woman should come, my dame gave me a piece of a pudding, which she had filled full of mustard. As soon as I had eaten the piece, it wrought so in my head that it made my eyes run all the day after. To mend this, my dame blew pepper in my nose to make me sneeze.

When the young wife arrived, my dame showed her all the commodes of her house (for women delight much to show forth what they have), they set them down together at the table, just the two of them. While they were in gossiping about the behaviours of this woman and that, I came as I was accustomed and sat by my dame, and when the young woman, hearing me cough and seeing me weep continually, asked what ailed me, my dame, who had tears at her commandment, sighed (and fallen as it were into a sudden dumps), burst forth a weeping, and said, “In faith, mistress, I think I am the most unfortunate woman alive, upon whom God has at once poured forth all his plagues, for my husband, the most honest man that lived, he has been taken from me, and with him my heir and only son, the most towardly young man that was alive ; and yet not satisfied therewith, look here my only daughter, which, though I say it, was as fair a woman and as fortunately married as any in this city, He has (for her honesty or cruelty I cannot tell whether) turned her into this cat, where she has been this two months continually weeping as you see, and lamenting her miserable wretchedness.’

The young woman, astonished at this tale, and crediting it by means of my dame’s lachrimable protestations and deep dissimulation, asked her the more earnestly how and by what chance and for what cause, as she thought, she was so altered?

“Ah,” said my dame, “as I said before, I cannot tell what I should think, whether excuse my daughter and accuse God, or else blame her and acquit Him, for this my daughter, being, as I said, fortunately, married and so beloved of her husband and loving again to him, as now we both too late do and forever I think shall rue, was loved exceedingly of another young man, who made great suite and labour unto her. But she (as I think all women should), esteeming her honesty and promise made to her husband the day of her marriage, refused still his desire; but because he was importunate she came at last and told me it. And I, thinking that I did well, charged her in any case (which full oft since I have repented) that she shall not consent unto him, but to shake him off with shrewd words and threatening answers. She did so ; alas, alas, the while, and the young man, seeing no other boot, went home and fell sick, and loving so honestly and secretly that he could make none other of his council, pined and languished upon his bed the space of three days, receiving neither meat nor drink ; and then, perceiving his death to approach, he wrote a letter, which I have in my purse, and sent it by his boy to my daughter, if you can read you shall see it, I cannot, but my daughter best could very well and write too.' Herewith my dame wept apace, and took the letter out of her purse and gave it this young woman, who read it in form following:—

"The nameless lover to the nameless beloved
in whose love he may not live, he only desires license to die. Cursed be the woeful time wherein mutual love first mixed the mass of my miserable carcass! Cursed be the hour that ever the fatal destinies have ought for me prevailed; yea, cursed be the unhappy house, may I say, in which I first saw those passing eyes, which by insensible and unquenchable power inflaming my heart to desire are so blend of mercy as will rather with rigour consume my life than view my grief with one drop of pity!

I sue not to you, my dear unloving love, for any kind of grace the doubtful hope where of despair has long since with the pouring showers of evil words utterly quenched ; but this much I desire, which also by right me thinks my faithful love has well deserved, yet your fidelity in wedlock, which I can and must needs praise as would to God I could not, will suffer my pined course no longer to retain the breath, through cold cares wholly consumed, yet as the least, which is also an office of friendship before the gods meritorious, come, visit him who, if aught might quench love, should not love; whose mouth these three days has taken no food; whose eyes the like time have taken no rest; whose heart this three weeks was never merry; whose mind these three months was never quiet; whose bed this seven nights was never made; and who, to be brief, in all parts so enfeebled that living he dies, and dead while he lives!

And when this silly ghost shall leave this cruel and miserable prison, in recompense of his love, life, and death, let those white and tender hands of yours close up those open windows through which the uncomfortable light of your beauty shone first into this heart.
If you this refuse to do, I beseech the gods immortal, to whom immediately I go, that as without any kind of either love or kindness you had caused me to die, so that none other caught with your beauty do likewise perish!

I beseech, I say, the just gods that either they change that honest stony heart, or else disfigure that fair miracles favour.

Thus, for want of force either to endite or write anymore, I take my leave, desiring you either to come or see me die or if I am dead before, to see me honestly buried.

Yours unregarded alive,

G. S.”

When the young woman had read this letter she spoke again to my dame, and with much to do to withhold her swelling tears she said, 'I am sorry for your heaviness, much more for this poor man’s; but what did she after she saw this letter ?' 

“Ah,” said my dame, “she esteemed it as she did his suits before—she sent him a rough answer in writing, but never the boy came home with it for his master was dead. Within two days after, my son-in-law, her husband, also died suddenly; and within two days after, as she sat here with me lamenting his death, a voice cried out aloud, ‘Ah, flinty heart, repent thy cruelty!’ And immediately, oh extreme rigour, she was changed as you now see her! Whereupon I gather that though God would have us keep our faith to our husbands, yet rather than any other should die for ourselves, we should not make any conscience to save their lives; for it fared in this point as it does in all other; for as all extremities are vices, so is it a vice, as appeared plainly by the punishment of my daughter, to be extreme in honesty, chastity, or any other kind of virtue.” 

This, with other talk of my dame, in the dinner-time, so sunk into the young woman's mind that the same afternoon she sent for the gentleman whom she had so constantly refused, and promised him that if he would appoint her an unsuspected place, she would be glad to meet him to fulfil all his lust, which he appointed to be the next day, at my dame's house.

The next day, when they were all assembled, I, minding to teach my dame a lesson for giving me mustard, caught a quick mouse, of which my dame was always exceedingly afraid, and came with it under her clothes, and then let it go, which immediately crept up on her leg. But, Lord! how she bestirred then; how she cried out, and how pale she looked. I, to amend the matter, making as though I leapt to the mouse, all to be scratch her thighs and her belly so that I dare say she was not whole again in two months after. When the young woman to whom she showed her scratched thighs, said I was an unnatural daughter to deal so with my mother.

“Nay, nay,” said she, “I cannot blame her, for it was through my counsel she suffered all this sorrow ; and yet, I dare say, she did it against her will, thinking to have caught the mouse, which else, I dare say would have crept into my belly.'

By this means this innocent woman, otherwise invincible was brought to consent to commit whoredom.

BtC 18/22. A Glimpse into Cat Society

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mouseslayer is recounting her life story to an assembly of cats.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: The council of cats

This is a more grim section of the story and centres around sexual assault. All the characters are cats but that doesn’t really change the nature of it. Suffice to say that Catchrat is a greedy, nasty, shit bag of a cat. Mouseslayer does him damage for his attempted to rape and this is why she now finds herself at this assembly of cats.

The cats in general, like other elements in the book, are not a straight allegory for anything. I had expected that perhaps the book wold be simply cats = catholic and hence the title being a warning against catholics. Luckily Beware the Cat isn’t that crude of simplistic.

The cats are cats. They carry with them the semiotics of cats that we might expect from Tudor England (feminine, cunning, easily frightened, hard to control, companionable, disloyal, greedy, sexually-promiscuous). However, rather than have cats stand for some aspect of Tudor society, Baldwin uses them to contrast them by highlighting how they differ.

The cats obey their laws. The point being even cats know that it is important to obey the law (unlike, presumably, English people).

Cats speak a common language across Britain and Ireland. While Grimalkin speaks in Gaelic to Apore the implication elsewhere is that all cats share a common mode of speech. England at this time still had regional languages and/or dialects. For some areas of England, this meant the change from a Latin mass to an English mass was a retrograde step. Latin was a common denominator but a standardised English favoured south-east England.

As we see below, Mouseslayer is depicted as being more sexually virtuous (by Tudor standards) than the young woman in the earlier story. Again the proverbial behaviour of cats is being used to show that even cats behave better (by Baldwin’s standards) than people.

The cats are less influenced by stories. While the human characters are easily swayed by tall tales, Mouseslayer remains sceptical about the power of a human priest despite having witnessed an apparent miracle.

The cats are organised. They communicate across countries and over seas. They herd themselves. As we see in the next story, people are chaotic and group efforts end in people in a pile on the floor with their bare bottoms in the air.

Repeatedly the cats rise above expectations (based on cat stereotypes) and people fall below them (by the standards of Baldwin’s Tudor protestant morality). The point being Baldwin saying indirectly to everybody “you are worse than cats”.

Mouseslayer’s defence against Catchrat

“Shortly after this the young woman begged my dame to give me to her, and with the young woman I went and dwelled all that year. In that year, as all the cats in the parish can attest, I never disobeyed or transgressed our holy law in refusing the concupiscenial company of any cat, nor the act of generation, although some time it were more painful to me than pleasant, so long as it were offered in due and convenient time.

“Indeed, I confess that I refused Catchrat and bit him, and scratched him, which our law forbids; for on a time this year when I was great with kitlings, which he of a proud stomach refused to help to get, although I earnestly wooed him to, at that time he loved so much his own daughter, Slickskin, that all others seemed vile in his sight, which also esteemed him as much as he did the rest, that is, never a whit in this time.

“I say when I was great with kitling I found him in a gutter eating a bat which he had caught that evening ; and as you know, not only we, but also women in our case do oft long for many things, so I then longed for a piece of the bat, and asked him, for the saving of my kitten, to give me a morsel, even though it were but of the leather-like wing but he, like an unnatural ravenous churl, ate it all up, and would give me none, and, as men do now-a-days to their wives, he gave me bitter words, saying, we longed for wantons and not for any need.

“This grieved me so sorely, chiefly for the lack of that I longed for (I was sick for two days after). Had it not been for good dame Isegrim, who brought me a piece of a mouse, and made me believe it was of a back, I would have lost my burden by kittening two days before my time.

“When I was recovered and went abroad again, about three days, this cruel churl met me, and needs would have been doing with me, to whom when I had made answer according to his desserts, and told him withal, which he might see to by my belly, what case I was in, tush, there was no remedy (I think he had eaten savoury), but for all that I could say he would have his will. I seeing it, and that he would ravish me perforce, I cried out for help as loud as ever I could and to defend myself until help came, I scratch and bit as hard as ever I could. Had not Isegrim and her son Lightfoot come the sooner, who both are here and can witness, he would have marred me quite.

Now whether I might in this case refuse him, and do as I did, without breach of our holy law, which forbade us females to refuse any males not exceeding the number of ten in a night, judge you, my lords, to whom the interpretation of the laws belonged." 

"Yes, surely," said Grisard ; “according to the records, in the second year of the reign of Glascalon, at a court, held in Catswood, they decreed upon that exception, forbidding any male in this case to force any female, and that upon great penalties. To let this pass we were satisfied in your speech on the first night, tell us how you behaved you with your new mistress, and that as briefly as you can for lo where Corleons is almost plain west, whereby we know the goblins hour approaches.”

BtC 19/22. Two More Tales from Mouseslayer

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mouseslayer is recounting her life story to an assembly of cats. She has also defended herself against claims by the obnoxious Catchrat.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: The council of cats

Layer 4: Mouseslayer’s stories

The last two stories from Mouseslayer concern her time with the young woman we met in the previous story.

The third story initially makes Mouseslayer the object of humour. A man sticks walnut shells to her feet so she can’t walk properly. However, events spiral out of control when Mouseslayer is mistaken for a demon. There are bottom jokes and people shitting themselves but not much theology other than a priest has to improvise because he isn’t allowed to make holy water anymore.

The fourth story returns to the plot of the second story. The young woman who was convinced, by trickery, to have an affair is still seeing the man involved. Worse yet she and her lover have secretly spent all the husband’s money. Yes, a tale of cuckoldry which should make any alt-right readers happy if I had any, which I hope I don’t. This one has testicle jokes.

If you like cat themed farces you may enjoy them.

Mouseslayer’s Third Story

"After I was come to my young mistress," quote Mouseslayer "she made much of me, thinking that I had been my old dame’s daughter, and many tales she told me. My master, also, made much of me, because I would take meat in my foot and put it in my mouth and feed.

Now in this house there dwelt an ungracious fellow who, delighting much in unhappy turns, on a time took four walnut shells and filled them full of soft pitch and put them upon my feet into cold water till the pitch was hardened, and then he let me go. But, Lord! how strange it was for me to go in shoes, and how they vexed me! When I was upon any steep thing they made me slide and fall down. So all that afternoon, angry that I could not get off my shoes, I hid in a corner of the garret which was boarded, under which my master and mistress lay.

That night when they were all in bed, I spied a mouse playing in the flour, and when I ran at her to catch her, my shoes made such a noise upon the boards that it waked my master, who was a man very fearful of spirits ; and when he with his servants harkened well to the noise, which went pit pat, pit pat, as it had been the trampling of a horse, they became all afraid, and said surely it had been the devil. And as one of them, a hardy fellow, even he that had put the walnut shoes on me, came upstairs to see what it was, I went down to meet him, and made such a rattling that when he saw my glistering eyes, he fell down backward and broke his head, crying out: "The devil! The devil! The devil!" His master and all the rest hearing this, ran, naked as they were, into the street, and cried the same cry.

Whereupon the neighbours arose and called up among other and old priest, who lamented much the lack of holy water, which they were forbidden to make. So he went to the church, and took out of the font some of the christening water, and took his chalice and there in a wafer unconsecrated, and put on a surplice and his stole about his neck, and fetched out of his chamber a piece of holy candle which he had kept two year, and came back to the house, and with his candle lit in one hand, and a holy water sprinkle in the other hand, and his chalice and wafer in sight of his bosom, and a pot of font water at his girdle, up he came, praying, towards the garret, and all the people after him.

When I saw this, and thinking I should see some mass that night as many nights before in other places I had, I ran towards them, thinking to meet them. But when the priest heard me come, and by a glimpsing had seen me, down he fell upon them that were behind him, and with his chalice hurt one, with his water-pot another, and his holy candle fell into another priest below, who, while the rest were looking for me, was conjuring our maid at the stairs foot, and all to besinged him, for he was so afraid with the noise of the rest which fell that he had not the power to put it out.

When I saw all this business done I ran among them where they lay on heaps; but such a fear as they were all in then, I think was never seen before; for the old priest, which was so tumbled among them that his face lay upon a boy's bare arse, which belike had fallen headlong under him, and was so astonished that when the boy shat himself out of fear, had all mired his face. The priest neither felt nor smelt the shit, nor removed it from him.

Then went I to my young mistress which lay among the rest, God knows very madly, and so mewed and curled about her, that at last, she said, “I think it be my cat” Hearing the knave that had put shoes on me, and calling to mind that erst he had forgotten, said it was so indeed and nothing else. Hearing that the priest in whose holy breech the holy candle all this while lay burning, he took haste a grace, and before he was spied, rose up and took the candle in his hand, and looked upon me and all the company, and fell a laughing at the handsome lying of his fellows face. The rest, hearing him, came every man to himself, and arose and looked upon me, and cursed the knave which had shoed me. This done they got hot water and dissolved the pitch, and plucked off my shoes; and then every man, after they desired each other not to talk again of this night’s work, for shame, departed to their lodgings, and all our household went to bed again.

Mouseslayer’s Fourth Story

(When all the cats, and I as well, had laughed at this apace, Mouseslayer proceeded, again)

After this, about three quarters of a year later at Whitsun last, I played another prank. The gentleman who by mine old dames lying, and by my weeping, was accepted and retained of my mistress, came often home to our house (always in my master's absence) and was doing with my young mistress. They had spent my master’s goods so lavishly between them that notwithstanding his great trade of merchandise, they had, unknown to him, almost undone him already. So I sought how I might betray them

At the time I just mentioned, it came to pass that while this gentleman was doing with my young mistress, my master came in so suddenly that he had no time to pluck up his hose, but with them still about his ankle ran into a corner and hid behind the painted cloth, and there stood, I warrant you, as still as a mouse.

As soon as my master came in his wife, according to her old wont, caught him about his neck and kissed him, and devised many means to get him forth again, but he, being weary, sat down and called for his dinner; and when she saw there was no other remedy she brought it him, which was a mess of pottage and piece of beef (whereas she and her lover had broken their fast with capons, hot venison, marrowbones, and all other kinds of dainties). I seeing this, and minding to show my master how he was being treated, got behind the cloth, and, to make the man speak, I pawed him upon his bare legs and buttocks with my claws, and for all this, he stood still and never moved. However, my master heard me, and thinking I was catching a mouse, bad my mistress go help me, who knew what best was there, came to the cloth and called me away, saying, 'Come, puss! come puss!' and cast meat into the floor.

I minding no other thing, and seeing that scratching could not move him, suddenly I leapt up and caught him by the genitals with my teeth, and bit so hard, that when he had restrained more than I thought any man could, at last, he cried out, and caught me by the neck, thinking to strangle me. My master not smelling so much as hearing a rat, came to the cloth and lifted it up, and there found this naked gentleman strangling me who had his balls in my mouth. When I saw my master I let go of my hold, and the gentleman his, and away I ran immediately to the place where I now dwell, and never came there since, so that how long they agreed among them I cannot tell, nor never dare I go for fear of my life.

Thus have I told you, my good lords, all things that have been done and happened to me, wherein you perceive my loyalty and obedience to all good laws, and how shamefully and falsely I am accused as a transgressor; and pray you as you have perceived so certify, my liege, great Cammoloch (whose life both Hagat and Hag preserve), of my behaviour.

BtC 20/22. Back to Mr Streamer and Human Society

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer has gained superhuman hearing. He found a place where he can spy on the cats that meet on the roof of Aldersgate and listened to a series of stories from Mouseslayer the cat.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

Layer 2: main narrative spoken by Streamer

Layer 3: The council of cats

The story is nearly over. Mr Streamer wraps up some loose ends and eventually recovers his normal hearing. There is one more (and concluding) part after this.

Mouseslayer’s testimony from earlier nights is recounted as an overheard conversation by two cats in a garden. Here we hear briefly of a knight who spends too much time reading books that he neglects to sleep with his wife. Mouseslayer steals his breath, almost killing him - which is an interesting brief tale for a publisher to include in his book. A sly dig at himself?

This short section also significantly increases the range of people included in the book. Aside from the cats, the main characters have been priests (including Mr Streamer), servants, middle class men of unknown occupation and women running a household, and an Irish brigand.

The cast is centred around the Tudor urban middle-class and they people that they associate with. Aside from Patrick Apore, lower class characters are household servants. Upper-class people only appear in passing (such as the anecdote about Henry Tudor) or as objects of criticism (specifically the Pope). Priests, printers and merchants and their wives - the one woman who manages her own affairs runs a brothel of some sort but apparently moves in respectable circles.

Mr Streamer Concludes his Adventure

“When Grisard, Isegrim, and Poilnoes, the commissioners, had heard this declamation and requests of Mouseslayer, they prayed her much, and after they had commanded her with all the cats there to be on St. Catherine’s day next ensuing at Caithness, were (as she said) Cammoloch would hold his court, they departed.

And I glad to have heard what I heard, and sorry that I had not understood what was said the other two nights before, got me to my bed and slept.

The next morning when I went out into the garden, I heard a strange cat ask of our cat what Mouseslayer had done before the commissioners those three nights, to whom my cat answered that she had purged herself of a crime that was laid to her by Catchrat, and declared her whole life for six years space, whereof in the first two years she had five masters,—a priest, a baker, a lawyer, a broker, and a butcher, all whose privy deceits which she had seen she declared the first night ; in the two years after she had seven masters,—a bishop, a knight, an apothecary, a goldsmith, a usurer, an alchemist, and a lord, whose cruelty, study, craft, cunning, niggardness, folly, want, and oppression, she declared The second night wherein, their doing was notable ; because the knight, having a fair lady to his wife, gave his mind so much to his book that he seldom lay with her, this cat, pitying her mistress, and minding to scare him from lying alone, on a night when her master lay from her got to his mouth and drew to his breath, that she almost stifled him. A like part she played with the usurer, who being rich and yet living miserably, and faining him poor, she got one day while his treasure chest stood open and hid her there in, where of he, not knowing, locked her in it, and when at night he came thither again and heard one stirring there, and thinking it had been the devil, he called the priest and many other persons to come and help him to conjure, and when in their sight he opened his chest out leapt she, and they saw what riches he had, and shunned him thereafter. As for what was done and said yesternight, both of my lord Grisard's hard adventure and Mouseslayer bestowing of her other two last years, which is nothing in comparison of any of the other twos years before, I need not tell you for you were present and heard it yourself."

This told, lo I heard between these two cats, and though I went inside and broke my fast with bread and butter, and dined at noon with common meat, which so repaired my head again, and my other powers from the first digestion that by night time they were as normal as ever they were before; for I harked at night to other two cats, which, as I perceived by their gesture spoke of the same matter, I understood not a word.

So here have I told you all, chiefly you, my lord, a wonderful matter, and yet as incredible as it is wonderful; notwithstanding, when I may have convenient time I will tell you other things which these eyes of mine have seen, and these ears of mine have heard, and that of mysteries so far passing this that all which I have said now shall in comparison thereof be nothing at all to be believed. In the meantime while I will pray you to help to get me some money to convey me on my journey to Caithness, for I have been going thither these five years and never was able to perform my journey.”

When Master Ferries perceived that he would every man shut up his shop windows, which the aforesaid talk kept open two hours longer than they would have been.

BtC 21/22. The End of the Book

Previously on Beware the Cat: Mr Streamer has entertained his friends with a story about he gained superhuman hearing, discovered an assembly of cats and listened to a series of stories from Mouseslayer the cat.

Layer 1: framing narrative spoken by Baldwin

We finish with a moral. Baldwin has apparently forgotten about the original argument and instead focuses on a key lesson from Mouseslayer: cats see what we do, can understand what we say and tell all the other cats about it. As a consequence he says:

I would council all men to take heed of wickedness, and eschew secret sins and privy mischievous counsels, left, to their shame, all the world at length do hear of it. But if any man does put away his cat, then shall his so doing testify his secret naughty living, which he is more ashamed his cat should see than God and his angels, which see, mark, and behold all men’s closet doings.

Well it is his story but he does seem to have wandered off topic.

The main thing, it seems, is to live a life that your own cat won’t be ashamed of. Which is a good moral so long as you have a good cat.

This is the final part of the book. There will be one more post to conclude the series.

AN EXHORTATION.

I KNOW these things will seem marvellous to many men that cats should understand and speak, have a government among themselves and be obedient to their laws; and were it not for the approved authority of the ecstatically author of whom I heard it, I should myself be as doubtful as they. Yet seeing that I know the place and the persons with whom he talked of these matters before he experienced his wonderful and strange confessions, I am the less doubtful of the truth.

Seeing that Mr Streamer has in his oration proved that cats do understand us and mark our secret doings, and so declare them among themselves that through help of the medicine by him described any man may, as he did, understand them. I would council all men to take heed of wickedness, and eschew secret sins and privy mischievous counsels, left, to their shame, all the world at length do hear of it. But if any man does put away his cat, then shall his so doing testify his secret naughty living, which he is more ashamed his cat should see than God and his angels, which see, mark, and behold all men’s closet doings.

That we may take profit by this declaration of Master Streamers, let us so live, both openly and private, that neither our own cat, admitted to all our secrets, be able to declare aught of us to the world save what is laudable and honest ; nor the devils cat, which, will we or nil we, sees and writes all our ill doings here, ought to lay against us afore the face of God, who, not only with shame, but with everlasting torments, will punish all sin and wickedness. And ever when you go about anything call to mind this proverb, "Beware the Cat," not to tie up thy cat till those have done, but to see that neither your own nor the devils cat, which cannot be tied up, find anything there in to accuse you of shame.

Thus doing, you cannot do amiss, but shall have such good report through the cats declamation, that you shall in memory of Mr Streamer’s oration labour, who gives you this warning, sing unto God this hymn of his making.

THE HYMN.

WHO gives wit to whales, to apes, to owls,
And kindly speech, to fish, to flesh, to fowls;
And spirits to men in soul and body clean,
To mark and know what other creatures mean.

Which hast given grace to Gregory, no pope,
No king, no lord, whose treasures are this hope,
But silly priest, which like a Streamer waves,
In ghostly good despised of foolish knaves.

Which have, I say, given grace to him to know
The course of things above and here below;
With skill so great in languages and tongues,
As never breathed from Mithridates lungs.

To whom the hunter of birds, of mice, and rats,
Did squeak as plain as Kate that thomneth hats,
By mean of whom is openly bewraid
Such things as closely were both done and said.

To him grant, Lord, with healthy wealth and rest,
Long life to us to unload his learned breast ;
With fame so great to ever live his grave,
As none had erst nor any after have.

FINIS.

BtC 22/22. Message Fiction, Religion and Beware the Cat

If you’ve read the previous posts then you should now have a good sense of what Beware the Cat is like. However, if you are like me, you are probably still trying to make sense of it.

The English Reformation was social, political and theological. It happened in the wake of an information technology revolution (the printed book), an increased centralisation of the state and a Marxian shift from feudalism to capitalism. It exists at a time of conflict and to readers now it is a conflict that is difficult to identify with.

At one level it is about the modern (Baldwin) versus the pre-modern (Thomas) and scholasticism (Streamer). There is a secular, sceptical and rationalist element to it that presages later thinkers (or near contemporaries such as Frances Bacon).

At the same time, it is an argument for the oppression of ideas, dismissive of folk tales, Catholic traditions and regional distinctions. The Elizabethan era that the book anticipates was a time when Englishness was standardised and enforced and essentially when English nationalism (and imperialism) was invented and codified. Religion, language and monarchy were all part of that mix.

State-sponsored violence in the name of religion would dominate England for centuries after. Europe would become engulfed in wars of religion. In this context, Baldwin’s funny cat-story mockery loses its humour.

Yet looking at it another way, there is a humanism to the book that is charming and positive. The mocking is mostly gentle, even when targeted at the occasional priest. Mr Streamer is richly drawn and more than just a figure of mockery - you could imagine him to be entertaining company in small doses. Mouseslayer is also given depth and character and there is something powerful in the way the most complex character is somebody who would be otherwise marginalised - a common household pet.

I see this as a book full of optimism - much of it misplaced given events but still optimism. Baldwin is siding with rationality over superstition and humanity over tradition and he sees that in his protestant cause. Reality isn’t so simple. Within months of writing the book, his expectations of a more rational protestant future were thrown on their head by the death of Edward and crowning of Mary.

Above all this is a subversive book. It lets ideas run where they will and out of control of each of the narrators. In an almost post-modern twist, the final moral arrives in the form of a post-hoc rationalisation using the same kind of reasoning as the servants discussing Thomas’s tales of swindling Irish witches and their red swine.

The cliche is that herding cats is nigh on impossible and the narrative of Beware the Cat has that same cat-like quality. It goes where it wants to and defies the expectations of the reader and (probably) the author. By avoiding direct allegory, the story can slip out of any simple propagandised reading. By making all the narrators unreliable or marginalised, Baldwin makes the whole text resistant to any single reading.

For example, I doubt Baldwin had any feminist thoughts while writing the book and the book covers some of the most misogynist tropes in literature - specifically that women may be witches responsible for all manner of ills (a trope with parallels in the myths exploited in anti-Semitism or anti-Romany campaigns of violence). Yet while drawing on these tropes, which are still familiar today, the nature of the story is to pull them apart and subvert them. The belief in witches is shown to be absurd. Demonic apparitions are church bells, or cats and the mass panic of crowds is shown to be true danger.

Even as message fiction it is subversive. So what can we make of anti-Catholic tract whose anti-Catholicism is tied so tightly to a crowd of cats running across the roofs of Tudor London? I doubt many present-day Catholics would find it threatening. Its power lay in being overtly disrespectful to ideas and people that pre-reformation held great political and social power.

Look, really the only thing we can say is that we should all just behave ourselves just in case our cats are talking about us behind our backs. Beware, as Baldwin reminds us, the cat