The King o' the Cats

The King o' the Cats

The King o' the Cats or The King of the Cats is an English fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs. It is Aarne-Thompson type 6070B.

The story

A sexton (or in some versions, a gravedigger) returns to his wife in deep distress. He tells her that he had seen cats burying a coffin with a velvet pall and a golden coronet, and one had told him to tell Tom Tildrum, that Tim Toldrum's dead, but he has never heard of Tom Tildrum.

As soon as the sexton relates his tale, the family's tom-cat jumps up and says that if Tim Toldrum's dead, then he is now the king of cats! The cat then rushes up the chimney and is never seen again.

In popular culture

"The King o' the Cats" is referenced, with slight changes, in Diane Duane's "Young Wizards" novel, "A Wizard Abroad".

The story is also referenced several times in the Peter Straub novel, "Shadowland".

External links

* [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/jacobs/moreenglish/kingcats.html SurLaLune Fairy Tale site "The King o' the Cats"]
* [http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type6070b.html "The King o' the Cats" and other tales of the Aarne-Thompson type]


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