0059. The Hermit Cat

From The Orient Pearls: Indian Folklore by Shovona Devi, online at: Internet Archive.

Notes. You can find a different version of the story here: The Hypocritical Cat.

Summary: An old cat pretends to be a pious pilgrim, hoping to catch some mice to eat.

Read the story below:

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THE HERMIT CAT

(prayer beads)

The old cat, the mouse, and the pigeon

Once upon a time a torn cat, grown too old and infirm to catch his prey, stationed himself before the door of a temple, and fed on the crumbs of the offerings made to the idol by its votaries. Sometimes he used to sally out, holding up a rosary in one fore-paw, carrying a begging-bowl in the other, and limping along on his hind legs, in the hope of catching his prey by pious fraud instead of force, after the fashion of robber-mendicants.

On one of these sallies, the cat met with a mouse, and the latter, surprised to see a cat turned hermit, was bold enough to ask him whither he was bound.

"I have been abroad on a pilgrimage," said the cat. "I have just returned, and am now bound for my temple."

The mouse, prostrating himself before the cat, at a sufficiently safe distance, for "what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh," begged to be allowed to accompany him. Of course, the request was granted, the mouse following the hermit at a respectful distance.

The cat could not, even if he would, catch the mouse on open ground, lacking the energy to pursue his prey; but, once inside the temple, he could, said he to himself, pen him in and capture him with ease.

A little further on, a pigeon with a tuft of feathers on his head joined the party.

In the temple

Arrived at the temple, the cat made his companions walk in, and himself stood at the door, telling the rosary as if he were engaged in prayer, so as to disarm the suspicions of his intended victims.

In the meantime the mouse, suspecting foul play, made a sufficiently long hole for himself in the floor of the temple, while the pigeon perched himself on the canopy over the idol, beyond the cat's reach.

After a time, hungry as he was, the cat lost patience, and cast about for an excuse before attacking his intended victims. In a tone of haughtiness he demanded of the pigeon why he wore a tuft of feathers on his head.

"The tuft of feathers," said the bird with much humility, "is worn as a badge of caste."

The cat next turned to the mouse and demanded, in a still more haughty tone, why he wore a beard and whiskers.

"My beard and whiskers, thy holiness," replied the mouse, "are as much symbols of my religion as thy rosary and begging-bowl are of thine."

The cat, who now saw he had been found out, at once sprang upon the mouse, but, before his palsied paws could touch him, the little animal had slipped into the newly-made hole, while, as for the pigeon, it flew away to a place of safety.

The cat under the tree

Balked of his prey, the cat sulkily left the temple, and went and sat under a tree by a mouse-hole, with three paws up, sustaining his whole weight upon the fourth. The mice issued out of the hole, and, seeing the cat standing on one paw, enquired why he was practising austerities in front of their hole, of all places on earth.

The cat winked at them and said: "I am a cat turned hermit. I am standing on one paw out of consideration for mother Earth, because, if I stood on all four, she would be burdened with a greater weight."

The mice took him to be a very religious cat, and ceased to have any fear of him, and so, as they filed past, they prostrated themselves before him.

The wily cat used to snap up the last of the mice as they went past him, and, after they were gone out of sight, would devour him.

The revenge of the mice

In this way his religious garb stood him in good stead, but, on the other hand, the mice kept missing some one or other of their numerous family every day. One missed her husband, another his wife, a third his sister, and so on, and there was much weeping and lamentation among the survivors, and their suspicions naturally fell upon the cat-hermit, the hereditary enemy of their tribe.

They accordingly determined to keep watch over the doings of the cat-hermit, and, as they filed out of the hole, the head of the party kept looking behind until the last mouse had left, and lo! as the latter came out, he was seized! The party then turned back, and the cat instantly let go his prey and resumed his former attitude.

The mice filed back into the hole, and, acting on the principle of "union is strength," caught hold of the cat's tail and dragged him, by sheer force of numbers, into the hole, and made a feast off him, which lasted for many and many a day.