China: Why Dog and Cat are Enemies

For a different story about the enmity of the cat and dog, see this story in the Jewish Fairy Tales unit: The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog.

[Notes by LKG]
This story is part of the Chinese Fairy Tales unit. Story source: The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

Why Dog and Cat are Enemies

ONCE upon a time there was a man and his wife and they had a ring of gold. It was a lucky ring, and whoever owned it always had enough to live on. But this they did not know, and hence sold the ring for a small sum. But no sooner was the ring gone than they began to grow poorer and poorer, and at last did not know when they would get their next meal.

They had a dog and a cat, and these had to go hungry as well. Then the two animals took counsel together as to how they might restore to their owners their former good fortune. At length the dog hit upon an idea.

“They must have the ring back again,” he said to the cat.

The cat answered: “The ring has been carefully locked up in the chest where no one can get at it.”

“You must catch a mouse,” said the dog, “and the mouse must gnaw a hole in the chest and fetch out the ring. And if she does not want to, say that you will bite her to death, and you will see that she will do it.”

This advice pleased the cat, and she caught a mouse. Then she wanted to go to the house in which stood the chest, and the dog came after.

They came to a broad river. And since the cat could not swim, the dog took her on his back and swam across with her.

Then the cat carried the mouse to the house in which the chest stood. The mouse gnawed a hole in the chest and fetched out the ring. The cat put the ring in her mouth and went back to the river, where the dog was waiting for her, and swam across with her. Then they started out together for home, in order to bring the lucky ring to their master and mistress.

But the dog could only run along the ground; when there was a house in the way, he always had to go around it. The cat, however, quickly climbed over the roof, and so she reached home long before the dog and brought the ring to her master.

Then her master said to his wife: “What a good creature the cat is! We will always give her enough to eat and care for her as though she were our own child!”

But when the dog came home they beat him and scolded him, because he had not helped to bring home the ring again. And the cat sat by the fireplace, purred and said never a word.

Then the dog grew angry at the cat, because she had robbed him of his reward, and when he saw her he chased her and tried to seize her.

And ever since that day cat and dog are enemies.




(500 words)






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