HOW THE FIRST CAT WAS CREATED.
PREFACE.
I got the following story from my friend Dr. Conor Maguire, of Claremorris. It explains how the first cat and first mouse were created. I heard many such stories explaining the origin of this thing or the other from the Red Indians in Canada, but, of course, none of them had anything to say to Christianity. It is impossible to tell the age of this legend, but it may be taken for granted that such themes were common in Pagan times just as they are amongst the Red Men to-day, and it may well be that this story in its origin is older than Christianity itself, and that a saint may have taken the place of an enchanter when the people became Christians. I think it is pretty certain that this story originally concerned only the flour—the food of man—and the mice—the enemy of the flour—and the cat—the enemy of the mice; and that the mention of the sow and her litter is a late and stupid interpolation.
THE STORY.
One day Mary and her Son were travelling the road, and they heavy and tired, and it chanced that they went past the door of a house in which there was a lock of wheat being winnowed. The Blessed Virgin went in, and she asked an alms of wheat, and the woman of the house refused her.
"Go in again to her," said the Son, "and ask her for it in the name of God."
She went, and the woman refused her again.
"Go in to her again," said He, "and ask her to give you leave to put your hand into the pail of water, and to thrust it down into the heap of wheat, and to take away with you all that shall cling to your hand."
She went, and the woman gave her leave to do that. When she came out to our Saviour, He said to her, "Do not let one grain of that go astray, for it is worth much and much."
When they had gone a bit from the house they looked back, and saw a flock of demons coming towards the house, and the Virgin Mary was frightened lest they might do harm to the woman. "Let there be no anxiety on you," said Jesus to her; "since it has chanced that she has given you all that of alms, they shall get no victory over her."
They travelled on, then, until they reached as far as a place where a man named Martin had a mill. "Go in," said our Saviour to His mother, "since it has chanced that the mill is working, and ask them to grind that little grain-een for you."
She went. "O musha, it's not worth while for me," said the boy who was attending the querns, "to put that little lockeen a-grinding for you." Martin heard them talking and said to the lout, "Oh, then, do it for the creature, perhaps she wants it badly," said he. He did it, and he gave her all the flour that came from it.
They travelled on then, and they were not gone any distance until the mill was full of flour as white as snow. When Martin perceived this great miracle he understood well that it was the Son of God and His Mother who chanced that way. He ran out and followed them, at his best, and he made across the fields until he came up with them, and there was that much haste on him in going through a scunce of hawthorns that a spike of the hawthorn met his breast and wounded him greatly. There was that much zeal in him that he did not feel the pain, but clapt his hand over it, and never stopped until he came up with them. When our Saviour beheld the wound upon poor Martin, He laid His hand upon it, and it was closed, and healed upon the spot. He said to Martin then that he was a fitting man in the presence of God; "and go home now," said He, "and place a fistful of the flour under a dish, and do not stir it until morning."
When Martin went home he did that, and he put the dish, mouth under, and the fistful of flour beneath it.
The servant girl was watching him, and thought that maybe it would be a good thing if she were to set a dish for herself in the same way, and signs on her, she set it.
On the morning of the next day Martin lifted his dish, and what should run out from under it but a fine sow and a big litter of bonhams with her. The girl lifted her own dish, and there ran out a big mouse and a clutch of young mouselets with her. They ran here and there, and Martin at once thought that they were not good, and he plucked a big mitten off his hand and flung it at the young mice, but as soon as it touched the ground it changed into a cat, and the cat began to kill the young mice. That was the beginning of cats. Martin was a saint from that time forward, but I do not know which of the saints he was of all who were called Martin.