Kalda - Of cats and men: profiles of historys great cat-loving artists, writers, thinkers, and statesmen

Men are often portrayed in the company of dogs. They hunt together, run happily side by side, and ride shoulder to shoulder in mud-splattered pickupsthe perfect image of masculine bliss. The dog is, after all, mans best friend. Some men, that is.

For centuries, legions of forward-thinking menartists, writers, scientists, and philosophershave shared their libraries and studios with a purring feline or two. In recent years, a new population of proud, cat-loving men has come out of the proverbial cat closet, embracing the purr, mew, and squint of feline companionship.

Women have, for centuries, been chided and maligned for having a cat, let alone several. This crazy cat lady stereotype is deeply unfair. Like Prometheus to fire, generations of enlightened fellows have gravitated to the feline species. We stand with our cat-loving sisters as crazy cat men, proudly wearing our scarlet letters in solidarity.

Since man first discovered a fallen whisker in the forests of Eden, he has had a twilight bond with cats. We need only imagine the temples of ancient Egypt, where the priests prayed to statues of Bastet, cat goddess of the Egyptian people and protectress against disease and evil spirits. When a cat died, the Egyptians would shave their eyebrows in mourningtheirs was a truly cat-crazy culture. In fact, when a temple of Bastet was excavated in the late nineteenth century, archaeologists uncovered more than three hundred thousand cat mummies. Who knew that a catnap could last over two millennia?

Although these mummy makers of antiquity are the most famous of cat worshippers, this feline adoration has roots much deeper in the clay and soil of culture. Like anthropologists searching through bone fragments for a narrative of physical evolution, we too, dear reader, journey through these pages in search of origins. We long to see a distant relative, brushing the mane of a great Persian cat, blurred by the sands of time. Where did it all begin? Who was the first cat man?

Imagine, if you will, a cave in prehistoric France. A shaman sketches out the figure of a fierce cat with ash, spit, and dried berries on the rough stone walls. A torch flickers throughout the darkened cavern, and the crude images take on a striking likeness. Is it the hashish-induced madness of the onlooker? Could this be the moment of divine alchemy that spawned the first cat man?

Any history is largely a story of individuals. This book, as a collection of characters, is certain to leave out a number of important figures. Indeed, there are many players in Cat Land, and some omissions might even be deemed scandalous. However, parties are best kept smallenough people for lively conversation, but not overly loud and crowded.

While we as cat men, dear reader, are not all united in virtuethough, lets face it, many of us arewe all share a common sensibility. Though we have spent many years as a silent population, we all believe in the cat as a force for change in male consciousnessa secular embrace of an ancient religion.

Too often, those of our number peek out of the cat closet, grasping for images of ourselves, asking, Is this normal? Am I a freak? What will my friends and family think? Quell your fears, sir. In between these pages, you are among friends.

TENTH-CENTURY WELSH KING

Our tale of cat men begins in the Dark Ages, a bleak time for pretty much everything even vaguely comfortable and civilized in the Western world. For cats, in particular, this was a violent age of superstition and ailurophobia. However, as we are well aware, cats are territorial, regal beasts, so its fitting we begin in the court of the old kings of the British Isles.

Beginning around AD 920, the medieval king Hywel Dda ruled over much of present-day Wales. After visiting Rome as a young man, Hywel returned to his kingdom and set about bringing order to traditional Welsh law. Hywel the Good, as he is now known, introduced laws to protect domestic cats. Because Hywel recognized that cats were of great value to agriculture and the community as pest controllers, he introduced a scale of prices for kittens and cats that included penalties for killing or stealing a cat. These prices varied from one to four pence according to the age and killing ability of each cat.