The Prince went back to the White Cat, and told her what his father had said. She replied:—
“Cut off my head and my tail.”
At last he consented: instantly the Cat was transformed into a beautiful Princess; for she had been condemned by a wicked fairy to appear as a Cat, till a young Prince should cut off her head and tail. The Prince and Princess went to the old King’s court, and she was far more beautiful than the ladies brought by the other two Princes. But she did not want the kingdom, for she had four of her own already. One of these she gave to each of the elder brothers of the young Prince, and over the other two she ruled with her husband, for the young Prince married her, and they lived happily together all their lives.
In Mr. Morley’s Fairy Tales, there is a funny passage:—“‘I wonder,’ said a sparrow, ‘what the eagles are about, that they don’t fly away with the Cats? And now I think of it, a civil question cannot give offence.’ So the sparrow finished her breakfast, went to the eagle, and said:—
“‘May it please your royalty, I see you and your race fly away with the birds and the lambs that do no harm. But there is not a creature so malignant as a Cat; she prowls about our nests, eats up our young, and bites off our own heads. She feeds so daintily that she must be herself good eating. She is lighter to carry than a bird, and you would get a famous grip in her loose fur. Why do you not feed upon Cat?’
“‘Ah!’ said the eagle, ‘there is sense in your question. I had the worms to hear this morning, asking me why I did not breakfast upon sparrows. Do I see a morsel of worm’s skin on your beak, my child?’
“The sparrow cleaned his bill upon his bosom, and said:—‘I should like to see the worm who came with that enquiry.’
“‘Come forward, worm,’ the eagle said. But when the worm appeared, the sparrow snapped him up, and ate him. Then he went on with his argument against the Cats.”
Everybody has heard of the Kilkenny Cats, and how they fought in a saw-pit with such ferocious determination, that when the battle was over, nothing was remaining of either combatant except his tail. Of course, we none of us suppose that the tale is true, but some writers think that the account of the mutual destruction of the contending Cats was an allegory designed to typify the utter ruin to which centuries of litigation and embroilment on the subject of conflicting rights and privileges tended to reduce the respective exchequers of the rival municipal bodies of Kilkenny and Irishtown—separate corporations existing within the liberties of one city, and the boundaries of the respective jurisdiction of which had never been marked out or defined by an authority to which either was willing to bow. The desperate struggles for supremacy of these parish worthies began A.D. 1377, and they fought, as only vestrymen can fight, a little over three hundred years, by the end of which time there was, as you may suppose, very little left of them but their tails, for, of course, there was a disinterested third person to whom the affairs were referred for arbitration, in the old way that the Cats appealed to the monkey upon the great cheese question—who swallowed his huge mouthful. In the end it would appear that all the property of either side was mortgaged, and bye-laws were passed by each party that their respective officers should be content with the dignity of their station, and forego all hope of salary till the suit at law with the other “pretended corporation” should be terminated.
Let this be as it may, one thing is certain: Kilkenny Cats are quite as amiable now-a-days as the Cats of any other city in Great Britain.