Folk Tradition
In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt is referred to by Mercutio as "King of Cats", and though this is more likely in reference to Tibert/Tybalt the "Prince of Cats" in Reynard the Fox, it demonstrates the existence of the phrase from at least the 16th century in England.
The 1561 novel Beware the Cat, known as the first horror fiction text longer than a short story and possibly the first novel ever published in English, contains two traditional tales about cats, which appear in similar forms both before and after its publication; of which "The King of the Cats" is a notable example.
A king or lord of the cats appears in at least two early Irish tales. Most notably, some versions of the Imtheacht na Tromdhaimhe (The Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution) include a dispute between Senchán Torpéist the bard and king Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin of Connacht, which led to the bard first cursing all mice, killing a dozen of them in shame, followed by the cats who should have kept the mice in check; in retaliation, the king of the cats, Irusan son of Arusan hunts Senchán down intending to kill him, but is in turn killed by St Kieran. This tale was reworked by Lady Jane Wilde as "Seanchan the Bard and the King of the Cats", published in her 1866 book Ancient Legends of Ireland, and included in W. B. Yeats' 1892 book Irish Fairy Tales. The second was retold as "When the King of the Cats Came to King Connal's Dominion" in Padraic Colum's 1916 book The King of Ireland's Son.
Cats are connected in many folklore traditions with the supernatural and supernatural beings such as elves and fairies.
Read more about this topic: The King O' The Cats
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or tradition:
“An’ when the earth’s as cauld’s the mune
An’ a’ its folk are lang syne deid,
On coontless stars the Babe maun cry
An’ the Crucified maun bleed.”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
“As soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.”
—Allan Bloom (1930–1992)