Looking back.

Eighteen years ago She had a big white cat, the legendary Comfrey, who walked and walked the hills with Her.

When he died, in mysterious circumstances, Arthur and Martha came to live here.

 

They were all so young, and some of us weren't even born!

The Land of Cath Palug

On this quiet evening She left behind the dogs, left behind the camera, walked to the high hill top and Kiffer and I walked too. My fur glowed rose in the evening light as the sun set red over the sea.
So still an evening that you could hear the moth wing buzz as they rose from the grass beneath our paws, could hear a feather drop like the skylark song, could hear the sheep across the fields and way away the horses drum hoofbeats. So still we could hear the badgers yicker yak and tumble outside the set like a city under wind twisted thorn trees. So still we could hear the rustle of bracken and then see the red mask of fox face as she hunted, searching for fat pheasant. Summer sleek and dark, she blended with the shadows on the hillside, but we watched her sure footed rambling, nose down, tail up, dark back and robber's mask.
The sea so calm in made a perfect mirror for the sky to look at her beautiful face. The air so clear that if you looked towards the north the coast of Wales stretched out, beyond Snowdon and up to North Wales, where Cath Palug the great cat of Wales still haunts the hills. The land looked like faery islands. Beautiful.
Home in the twilight and the white flowers glowed like fallen stars and the moths grew larger, more numerous and early bats flitted in their aerywinged hunt and the fox bark and badger call laid claim to the land and to the darkness.

Pixie, the smallest cat

Worried because Pixiecat was still not eating She phoned the vet today and Kath was lovely enough to fit in an extra evening appointment. Pleased with Pixiecats progress Kath gave special food for Pixie. It seems her mouth is filled with sores and her tongue is covered with ulcers, so she has to be fed with a syringe. But Pixie is over the worst with the flu and If only She was a better nurse and would stop painting and just sit and read to Pixie and feed her when she needs food then all will be well.
Meanwhile Bella, brave kind Bella, is looking after Pixie, making sure she is clean and knows that she is loved.

And Bella is teaching Rosie how to care for cats.

Meanwhile Martha, the old one, lies stretched over the fire in the warmest place and dreams of Lion, a far away cat of great age.

Secrets

I am Kiffer and I am happy and this is my new home and I am wondering if I am in cat heaven. I know secrets. I know that under this bucket is a nest of mice, tiny and pink, blind and squeaking.

And I know that this lion's head marks the spot where the great Arthur is buried, giant of a ginger cat who walked and stalked the hills bringing terror to all rats and mice. Noble cat who died too soon, too short a life for one so painted like the sun setting on a clear summer day. When he was alive he burned bright and now he is the stuff of legend.
Martha says you can still hear him if you listen. His voice sings with the call of the buzzard as it wheels, high in the sky.

Tonight is the full moon and we will sing with all the ghost cats of the village, on the ruined cottage walls, in praise of the moon and in praise of the claw and the teeth that are sharp and the eyes that see clear in the dark. And the mice will hide in their homes in fear and awe.

Dog gives birth to cats.

In Cambodia a small dog gave birth to a kitten. A forest monk, a holy man, said that the dog fell in love with a tiger, a beautiful, wild and huge ginger cat that roamed the forests.
Maybe the kitten will grow to be huge and wild like Cath Palug.

Here in Pembrokeshire we have a new story.


In Pembrokeshire in Wales a dog has given birth to three ginger cats. The cats are an ancient breed of Welsh Sheepcats bred by farmers for working sheep who are frightened of dogs.
"Sheepcats are very rare," said Jackie Morris. " As more and more farms in Pembrokeshire have been turned into holiday cottages demand for Sheepcats has dropped to a level where they have become an endangered species and it is years since a dog has given birth to three. They are notoriously difficult to train as they are easily distracted by rodents and butterflies, and so farmers in modern times favor using dogs. "

How to make a Gingercat

Where did we come from?
Why do we walk so far?
How were we trained?
Sometimes when we walk we meet people and they ask questions for it is strange to see three ginger cats so far from homes and houses, out in the wild lands.
Sometimes She says that She spent years training us to walk.
Sometimes She says that we are a special breed of Welsh walking cats, trained by shepherds in ancient times to do the work dogs do now.
Sometimes She says that we are not real cats but replicants.
Sometimes she talks of St Elvis where the Lady of Many Ginger Cats lives.
But one night, when we were all alone with Her, She told us a story which also might be true.

This is how to make a gingercat.




First find a large pot with a good lid. Then gather together these things

• The sharp edge of a blade, knife, sword or dagger.
• A thimble of salt water from the golden path of the setting sun.
• The shadows between tall stems of grass flowers.
• A clip of the sky at the very edge of the claw moon.
• A small piece of amber, ancient and glowing.
• A flick of flame from a driftwood witch fire.
• The soft breath sound of a whirring moth’s wings.
• A wish spoken once, softly in secret and never ever spoken again.
• Last of all a breath, just one, to bring all to life.




Put all into the pot and stir with the ochre feather fallen from a barn owl’s wing, withershins thrice.
Then bury the pot in the garden under the light of a full moon and wait.
When the night tips over from dark to light dig up the pot and open. Inside should be the smallest of ginger cats.

Cath Palug, the clawed one.

Cats have lived with humans for centuries. We were worshipped in ancient times as gods. Now we live as pets and are shaped by humans to fit their lives. They spay us, they take out our claws. If we have kittens they are taken from us and drowned in water by callous people. They use us as they wish in the name of science.
If we are lucky we are cherished, but many a cat is thrown aside to live or die on the streets.
But once we ruled over people and one day Cath Palug will come again to avenge us.
This is her story, a story told to kittens as they curl in the warm circle of their mother’s fur. A story as rich as the warm cat milk they drink.

She was born on the edge of the land, on the edge of a storm, eyes closed fast against the world, a tiny mewling thing. No comfort from her mother, for she was a wild thing, and magical, born of a wild boar, her sister a wolf, her brother an eagle. All would grow to be the scourge of Arthur’s Britain.
A shepherd found her. He picked up the small, black scrap and she became claws. Deep ribbons of blood flowed from his hands and he threw her from him, out over the cliffs and she fell and turned and twisted and tumbled into the raging waters of The Menai Straits.
Her world became water as down she sank, but she fought against even the power of the Straits, clawing the waves as she swam, away from the land through water so swift the surface was like mirror glass. She swam, and the current pulled her on, until exhaustion claimed her. For a moment she floated, still on the surface, then the weight of water began to pull her down. As she gave herself up to death warm hands scooped her up, wrapped around her and placed her inside a dark warm cave against skin. She slipped into a sleep.

They called her Cath Palug, a miracle cat of claw and bone. She was ever the shadow of Palug’s son, would walk with him, eat with him and slept curled around his head at night. She grew, first as big as a cat, then a hound, then a horse. In any other place the boy would have been burned as a witch along with this unnatural creature, but this was Ynys Mon, the Island of Dreamers. She hunted with Palug’s boy and his hounds and she was ever the swiftest. Her claws were sharp as swords, curved like the new moon, her teeth like daggers. Most times she was the shadow of the boy, but when the moon was full, for a few days she would be gone. No one knew where, but tales would be told of devastation on the mainland, of cattle taken, of hunters who disappeared.
And so Cath Palug came to the attention of the Great King Arthur feasting at his round table in the court at Glastonbury. Boastful and bragging that he would rid the country of all who stood against his rule of law he sent out his knights to hunt the legendary wild lion of Wales. Cai went forth, with many a knight.

The day was hot when the knights came to the shore and looked across the treacherous waters to the Dreamers Isle. Sun glinted on armour and swords and spears. Flags waved in a gentle breeze. In the hush before battle the buzzards called. Distant clouds began to build, dark clouds of raven summoned by rumour of battle. And on the shore of Ynys Mon Cath Palug waited and watched, amber eyes like fire, watching the mice-men.
Little is known of the battle that followed, for humans like only to tell of their victories. Some say that Cai returned to the court of King Arthur with the head of the lion of Ynys Mon as a trophy gift to his lord. They lie.
The battle was fierce and the battle was bloody. Side by side the Dreamers and the cat fought. She clawed and she spat and she ripped and she crushed with claw and with jaw. Her claws ripped the metal of the shields, sliced through armour. Her jaws crushed the helmets and splintered bone. Nine score warriors fell before her and when the battle was over few were left to crawl back home. She feasted with the raven and buzzard and kites on the bodies of these heroes and Cai, seeing his comrades so destroyed, ran into the woods, driven mad by the slaughter until he too died and became food for the wolves.

From that day Cath Palug, the clawed one, disappeared into myth and memory. No one knew where she went, but some say that she swam across the sea to Ireland where she mated with Murchata, the Irish sea-cat. Together they would lash their tails in the water to summon up storms. And together they would swim out into the sea and claw boats down into the watery depths, hunting the sailors like cats hunt mice and amassing a huge treasure hoard. Their children are still seen today by the lucky few, when the moon is a claw moon and the shadows are deep, a movement on a hillside, a dark shape in a forest. These are the children of Cath Palug and Murchata, a shape in the gloaming, a scream in the valley.

At Ynys Mon, every year, the ravens still gather in great numbers. Thousands come from all over Wales and Ireland to roost in the trees and to remember the great battle of Cath Palug.

Tales from the claw moon

Martha, the old one speaks: The moon is fading from full. Gather round cats and soon I will tell you the tale of a cat so fierce from ancient times, from fragment of a poem found in The Black Book of Carmarthen, told by the oldest of bards, unfinshed.
Only we cats know the trues tale of Cath Palog.

Visiting the ghost cats

Evening. Early twilight, and the world wrapped in a shroud of cloud. We went visiting the ghost cats.
On top of the hill we could hear the waves washing the shore at Whitesands Beach. The air was still and full of the weight of water. The world closed in tight by clouds. At Maes y Mynydd we looked for the ghost cats, climbing the ruined walls.




Here, once, one hundred years ago, a cat sat by the fire after a feast of fish heads and tails, while the men and women mended the nets for the next days fishing by the light of a fish oil lamp. Flames flickered and the cat was warm as he listened to their tales of the sea, and of selkies.




Here, once, the cat sat at the window and watched as carts rolled past carrying the heavy weight of hay to the farm over the hill. Then the cat hunted in the stubble field for the rats and the mice and the rabbits.




And here, now, in the full moonlight, the ghost cats still sit in the windows and warm by the flickering ghost fire as the ghost fishermen still mend their nets and the shadows draw in the night. If you listen you can hear their soft purr riding on the gentle breeze.

The Old One speaks

Gather up close now and I will begin.
I was born in a box in a house in St Davids. My mother was a farm cat my father a Siamese, sleek and beautiful, and we were three ginger and one black and white. For a while all we knew was the circle of warmth and the milk of our mother. As we grew bigger we explored further and then one day She came and took us, closed in a dark box, my brother and I, to this house.
At first we were scared, but there were children who loved us and we curled in Her studio, warm from the sun, wrapped around each other while She painted and made colours dance on paper.
We would walk up the hill with her, two bundles of fur, weaving our way through jungles of long grass. She called him Arthur, named from the sleeping king of all Britain, ancient and wise. Me, she called Martha.
And so we lived happily and grew and walked with her until one day a shadow flew low over the field and swooped and twisted around us. I was afraid, then and I ran. It was a bird, a buzzard, wide winged and ragged, searching for rabbits along the flower filled hedgerows.
After that I seldom walked, but Arthur continued to follow whenever she went. Sometimes he would visit the man who lived next door, who was lonely, and he would walk over the hill with him, keeping him company. Together they would visit the ruined cottages and talk with the ghosts of the people long gone, and Arthur would talk to the ghosts of the cats. Then as the evening light fell they would walk home together in quiet companionship.
For years we lived this life. Arthur was a hunter and would bring home rabbits, sometimes as big a himself. No rat would come near when he was around for he was sharp of tooth and claw. Then one day the man from next door brought him home. He was limp as a rag, still warm. It seemed that one of the cars that come so seldom had hit Arthur, driven away, didn't even notice.
There was a weeping in the house that night. She buried him in the garden beneath slate sand stone, a head of a lion carved from golden rock. Curled around as if a sleep, still purfect, with the golden sun caught in his ginger coat.
All night we sat and watched and waited, Bird, the black cat, Max and I.
In the morning we heard the cry of the buzzards high above and we joined our song with their lament. And it was then that I knew. The buzzards are the souls of the cats. We wish for wings. The buzzards mew with a cry like a cat and their eyes are amber and their claws are sharp.
Now when I see a buzzard I am no longer afraid for I know that Arthur is with them.
And so I walk again.