Posted on 10/16/2016 8:59:39 AM PDT by heterosupremacist
“Medieval people may have wanted to restrict cats to the function of animated mousetraps, for the very reason that the cat “stands at the threshold between the familiar and the wild.”
“Cats were intruders into human society. They could not be owned. They entered the house by stealth, like mice, and were suffered because they kept the insufferable mice in check.” This causes a kind of conceptual tension. While the cat possesses the characteristics of a good hunter it is useful, “but as long as it does it remains incompletely domesticated.”
Heretics, too, in a transferred sense, are not completely domesticated, since by challenging orthodox thought and roaming freely hither and thither in their interpretation of religious beliefs they resemble the bestiary definition of wildness. As symbolic animals, them cats may be the heretical animal par excellence”
(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...
The reason people were afraid of cats during the Middle Ages
Felines, despite having a good amount of domestic responsibilities, have not always been well regarded
As I read this, I’m sitting in my easy chair with Merlin next to me, on his back, getting his tummy rubbed, purring madly, and discussing the article with me every few seconds. “Mreeoww”
The familiars of Middle Ages witches have become the pets of modern middle-age crazy cat ladies.
Coincidence? I think not.
Or they could hav been afraid of them because they carry fleas which spread disease
They thought cats were carriers of the Black Death. So they killed the cats causing the real carrier, their fleas, to jump to the rats, becoming an even bigger problem.
I’ve read an old wives’ tale that they sucked the breath out of infants.
Our Nallie wishes to continue with her rule in her empire, aka our house, no matter the scholarly study.
“Or they could hav been afraid of them because they carry fleas which spread disease”
Oh, come on! That’s not mysterious or romantic enough. I’ll bet you question global warming also.
Cats have an independence/dependence sort of a thing. Generally, if treated well, the will settle in quite comfortably with a family.
Dogs Rule!
Although I’ve heard Trump likes a little pussy.....
Because they had eight too many lives?
Mouse Lives Matter!
The familiars of Middle Ages witches have become the pets of modern middle-age crazy cat ladies.
Coincidence? I think not.
I, for one, am tired of all the old prejudices against cats.
They are not bad luck.
They don’t suck the breath out of babies.
They don’t hang around with witches.
These are all old, disproven prejudices.
They do give you warts, though.
Stop making sense. You are micro-aggressing the idiot author of this fluff.
They do give you warts, though.....And my wife has been blaming me for hanging around Plum Alley!! “No dear. Fluffy done it!”
No...No...No...FROGS give you warts.
Coincidence? I think not.
Coincidence? Perhaps, but I bet it's toxoplasmosis...
You’ve been to Plum Alley in Tokyo?
And you lived to write about it?
I tip my hat to you, sir.
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