The Cat and the Mouse: A Book of Persian Fairy Tales

E-text prepared by Michael Gray (Lost_Gamer@comcast.net)
EDITED with an INTRODUCTION By HARTWELL JAMES WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS By JOHN R. NEILL
PHILADELPHIA HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
Persia is rich in folk lore. For hundreds and hundreds of years the stories in this book, and many others as well, have been told to the wondering boys and girls of that country, who, as they hear them, picture their native land as one of roses and tulips, where beautiful fairies build their castles in the rosy morn, and black gnomes fly around in the darkness of midnight.
A land, too, where the sun gleams like a fire above the blue mountains, and the water lilies are mirrored in the deep lakes. A land where the eyes of the tigers gleam through the reeds by the riverside, and dark-eyed, sunburned people are quick to love and quick to hate.
The belief in the Ghool, or Old Man of the Desert, is still prevalent in Persia, which probably accounts for the popularity of the story of The Son of the Soap Seller. The other stories selected for this volume are great favorites, but the story of The Cat and the Mouse is perhaps the most popular of all.
The frontispiece to this volume is a reduced facsimile of a whole page in a Persian book, showing both the pictures and the reading as they were published in Persia. The other illustrations for The Cat and the Mouse are copies of drawings by a Persian artist.
H. J.
THE CAT AND THE MOUSE
Showing how one may be lost in wonder at the story of the cat and the mouse, when related with a clear and rolling voice, as if from a pulpit.
CCORDING to the decree of Heaven, there once lived in the Persian city of Kerman a cat like unto a dragon—a longsighted cat who hunted like a lion; a cat with fascinating eyes and long whiskers and sharp teeth. Its body was like a drum, its beautiful fur like ermine skin.
Nobody was happier than this cat, neither the newly-wedded bride, nor the hospitable master of the house when he looks round on the smiling faces of his guests.