Episode 106 – Cat Burglar – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 106 Show Notes

Source: Armenian Folklore

This week on MYTH, we’re headed to the woods of Armenia for a unique spin on a classic fairy tale trope. You’ll see that you should always part an old woman from her walking stick, that some animals deserve to be punished, and that orphans don’t always grow up to be heroes. Then, in Gods and Monsters, the cat’s got your tongue, but who has the cat’s tail? This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 106, “Cat Burglar”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
This week, we’re in for a magical story from Armenian folklore, as compiled in Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books published between 1889 and 1913 by Lang and his wife Leonora Blanche Alleyne. Once upon a time, there lived an old woman in a small cottage on the edge of the forest. So, you know, a very classic opening. She was fairly content with her simple life. She had a garden in the backyard where she grew all sorts of vegetables and a couple of empty fields where a handful of cows grazed, keeping her well supplied with milk and cheese. This wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but it was enough for her neighbors (who were not the best people) to consider her to be unfairly rich and envy the shit out of her.
Given the poor opinion of the local populace, the woman had spent most of her life taking care of all the daily chores that come along with a small farm by herself. She worked her garden and milked her cows and generally got along fine. She was a solitary sort by nature, so being alone with her animals and her plants suited her just fine. Even as she got older, she was able to keep up with the needs of the farm right up until a nasty illness swept through the area. She survived the sickness and recovered, but it left her weaker and more easily tired than ever before. Daily chores were now dauntingly difficult and she began to wonder if maybe it would be nice to have another person around to talk to and to help out.
Not long after the old woman had her illness and epiphany, word reached her of a shepherd and his wife who had died unexpectedly, leaving their young son all alone in the world with no family to take him in. They lived not too far from the old woman’s farm, just on the other side of the plain, so she thought it destiny. She paid a young man to make the short journey to the young orphan boy and invite him to come and live with her and be adopted as her very own son.
The boy, who was about 12, was initially grateful for this unexpected kindness. He was devastated about losing his parents, as anyone would be at that age, but his adopted mother was every bit as kind and generous as his birth family had been. He was very lucky to have fallen into such a beneficial position when he could just as easily have ended up starving to death on the streets. Unfortunately, the kid didn’t take to placid isolation the way his new mother did and soon found himself hanging out with a gang of hooligans and shit-stirrers.
These little asshats were the terror of the town. Vicious and cruel as bullies that age can be, the young boy soon became the ringleader of this band of snot-nosed little troublemakers. Before long, the old woman began to sorely miss her lost solitude and tranquility though she still tried her best to raise her adopted son up the best she could. The boy got older and taller, but it would be a stretch to say he really grew up. His cruelty just grew with him, turning mean-spirited childish pranks into adult malice.
At her wits end, the old woman couldn’t think of what else she could do to try and straighten her grown ward out into something like a meaningful member of society. The commonly-held wisdom at the time (which still lingers to this day) was that the best way to settle a troublesome young man down was to marry him off. Surely the responsibility of a family would force the little dipshit to finally mature a little, rather than just giving him new things to be angry about and new targets to vent that anger on, right?
The woman asked around town for potential matches for her son. In time, she found the perfect young maiden. She was the right age, sweet, kind-hearted, industrious, and pretty to boot. The old woman knew that looks weren’t everything, but she also knew that it would be easier to sell her adult son on the whole marriage thing if his bride to be was easy on the eyes (since he was still far too immature to care about anything else). The young man had no objection to the match and so the wedding date was set and the two were wed shortly thereafter. The old woman had always intended to leave her little estate to her only son and heir, so the married couple came back to live with her in the cottage.
Over the next year, things got worse instead of better. The newly-married bridegroom continued to hang out with his gang of cheats and drunkards, abandoning his mother and wife to do all the work. If his wife tried to raise an objection to his shirking every single responsibility he had, he would grab a stick and beat her until she screamed. The young bride was already pregnant however and had a son of their own by the end of the year. That also failed to make any positive impact on him. If the baby got on his nerves, he beat the child too. It’s honestly a wonder that he didn’t manage to kill one or both of the poor innocents living in terror of his wrath.
The old woman did her best to temper her son. He was still just enough afraid of her anger from childhood to not try and beat her the way he did his wife and child, but he also didn’t listen to any of her advice or complaints. As the year passed, it became clear to her that this marriage hadn’t worked. Instead of making her son a better person, it had just made innocent people suffer. It was time for something to be done.
The story isn’t clear just when the old woman learned magic, but it gives the impression that she had always been a hedge witch who just didn’t bother much with spellwork. I gather that she felt that magic was best saved for when absolutely needed – if a thing could be done with sweat and grit, it ought to be. She’d tried that with her son and it had failed, so now it was time to make with the hocus pocus. After another day wasted in drinking, gambling, and general unpleasantness, she confronted her son before he could find some slight to take out his aggression on his family.
“Is this how you mean to waste your entire life? You’re not a child anymore, so it’s time to stop acting like a spoiled little brat. I’ve been patient with you, but I’m done cutting you slack. Abandon your shitty attitude and bad habits, starting helping with the work around here for once and, most importantly, stop being an abusive little fuck. No more laying hands on your family, you hear me? I’m serious. If you don’t, I’ll have to turn you into a jackass to match your personality. You’ll be forced to actually help out, carrying the heaviest loads you can manage on your back, eating sharp briars for meals, and feeling the lash of the whip to keep you moving. Shape up, or you’ll get a chance to see first-hand what it’s like to be powerless and beaten.”
The young man had always held back out of some grudging respect or gratitude for the woman who had taken him in and raised him, but he truly hated being confronted with his own bad behavior. Threats, especially from a little old woman he could break like a twig, enraged him. Far from being cowed by the old woman’s words, he got up in her face and screamed at her to fucking try it! If she didn’t shut her fat fucking face right fucking now, he’d whip her to within an inch of her life! The young man began to swagger off, thinking he had won the fight.
He had not. “Is that so?” asked the old woman. Before he could respond, she snatched up the steel cane she used to get around from its place in the corner and smashed it across his broad shoulders. Even as he tried to snarl and lunge for her, he felt his legs buckle beneath him. No, that wasn’t quite right – they didn’t collapse, they changed. His knees popped in his legs as they bent impossibly backwards. His fingers fused together and his arms lengthened. He tried to scream through a mouthful of thick teeth, but his voice came out as an ugly, wordless bray. In seconds, the handsome young man was gone, replaced with an ugly, squat donkey covered in coarse gray hair. “Now get out of my house you ungrateful animal!” Unable to help himself, the ugly donkey obeyed and waddled outside.
He stood there outside the cottage, confused and scared and angry. He didn’t know what to do about this unexpected and terrible turn of events and (though he still didn’t want to admit it to himself) he wasn’t sure what he could do exactly. The compulsion of his mother’s magic had him completely under its thrall. As he pondered, a man passed by the cottage and saw the ugly donkey that, to all appearances, didn’t belong to anybody. “Well, well, well – what have we here? I could use a fine beast of burden like yourself to help me out with some truly back-breaking labor and, just my luck, I find you here all alone and not belonging to anyone. It wouldn’t do for a jackass like yourself to stand around idle. Come on – there’s plenty of work for you to do.” Taking the donkey by the ear, he led it off away from the cottage.
The next seven years were hell for the young man turned donkey. Everything played out exactly as she had foretold. He was loaded up to almost the point of collapsing and forced to keep going when his legs were trembling by the cruel bite of the whip on his back. When he was finally done for the day, he was left to sleep in a cold field with nothing to eat but thorns and brambles that cut his tongue and scratched his throat. His mind remained his own. He could have used that time to reflect on what a shithead he had been and how he had ruined the lives of everyone around him. He could have considered that this was entirely his fault and he had been warned quite clearly about what would happen if he didn’t change his way and how the fault for this whole thing lay squarely on his shoulders. Being a petty, cruel little asshole though, he didn’t. No, he managed to convince himself that he was the real victim here, just like always, and it was everyone else’s fault. Especially his wife and child…somehow. Instead of growing remorseful, he just grew more and more bitter and cruel and hateful.
After seven years of harsh toil, the ugly ass skin sloughed off, leaving the young man standing there in his human form once more. He shook the fleas off his skin, tried out his voice (which still had a rough braying quality to it), and began to plod back towards his family’s cottage. He knocked briskly on the door, which was opened by his very surprised wife. Letting the door swing, she rushed inside to find her mother-in-law. After many years with a kid, everyone had taken to calling the old woman ‘Grandmother’, including the man’s worried wife. “Grandmother! Grandmother! Your son has come back – he’s at the door.”
The old woman looked up from her spinning, stretched her back out, and then went back to work. “I kind of thought he would. That magic was never meant to last forever. I was hopeful (but not terribly optimistic) that his time as a jackass would have taught him his lesson. Well, since he’s here already, I guess he better come in.” It was meant as permission, but the not as young as he once was man hadn’t bothered to wait. As soon as the door opened, he’d stormed inside and begun making himself at home once more.
It didn’t take very long at all for it to become obvious to everyone that the cruel young man had gotten worse rather than better. He immediately found his gang of awful friends and took back his spot as head dipshit. The old woman gave him a few weeks to get seven years of pent up shittiness out of his system, but that forbearance ended when he tried to put hands on his wife and child again.
Steel cane in hand, the old woman forced her way between her son and her daughter-in-law. “So you managed to avoid learning a single thing during your time as a donkey. I guess it’s not surprising – people like you never seem to learn from experience. Don’t have the sense for it, I suppose. If that didn’t get through your thick skull, then hear this instead: either mind your manners, or I’ll turn you into a wild beast to match your attitude, a weak, scrawny wolf to be hounded by man and dog alike.”
The young man sneered at his mother, having learned literally nothing from her previous magical punishment. “You talk too much you old bitch. Shut your yap, or I’ll break your head. Now fuck off so I can smoke my pipe in peace, or you’ll find out how serious I am about that threat.” He turned away to pack his pipe, already dismissing the old woman as inconsequential unless she kept annoying him. Rolling her eyes, she smashed her steel cane over his shoulders as he turned away. There was a flash of magic and the young man’s form melted painfully again. In moments, a mangy, scrawny gray wolf stood there in the living room. Tail tucked between his legs, the wolf ran out into the town beyond.
That didn’t go well for him. The many local dogs immediately caught the strange scent of the magic wolf and took up the chase. Howling rang out through the air, soon joined by the angry shouting of men armed with pitchforks and bows to harry the wolf out of their midst – and kill him if they could. The terrified wolf ran out of town, dogs literally snapping at his heels. For the next seven years, the mangy wolf lived constantly on the run. Hunters followed him everywhere he went. Any time he tried to catch a nap or get a morsel of food, some new threat would pop up and force him on the move again. It was even more miserable than his time as a donkey had been but, once again, it only made him meaner and angrier. This dude is an asshole through and through.
After this second seven years was up, the wolf skin sloughed off his body to reveal his human body again. He plucked a few ticks off some tender places and then headed back to the cottage where his family still lived. It played out almost exactly the same way as before. His behavior was worse than ever and his gang matched him in nastiness. The old woman did her best to give him time to cool off and learn some kind of basic human decency, but there was just nothing decent about him. He grew angrier and meaner until, one day, he once again took his rage out on his wife and child in a bout of brutal violence. They begged Grandmother for help.
For her part, Grandmother was officially over this shit. While he was distracted with, you know, spousal and child abuse, the old woman smashed her steel cane across his shoulders a third time. She put extra oomph into it this time – no more temporary fixes. There was another flash of magic followed by a puff of smoke and feathers. When it cleared, the young man had been replaced with a beady-eyed crow. With a vengeful glare, it took wing and flew out the window with a loud cawing (which the story transliterates as ‘gour! gour!’).
This time, the former human could feel that something was different – there would be no coming back from this transformation and he wanted revenge. He soared off to where his gang of cutthroats and scoundrels habitually gathered. Through a combination of cawing and dancing, he managed to convey to them what had happened. Murder glinting in their eyes, they seized knives and a rope and set out. They intended to strangle the old woman to death to avenge their feathery friend. The old woman, however, was clever. She knew that her former son wouldn’t take this permanent punishment well.
She saw the gang of ruffians coming over the hill and took up her steel cane. As they stomped towards her, weapons held menacingly in their hands, she waved her cane in a broad gesture. One by one, the leering men vanished in a puff of smoke to be replaced with a small, angry crow. Cawing angrily, they all soared off into a vengeful, hateful flock. To this day, they remain crows and bear ill-omens on their wings. Maybe that’s why a group of crows is called a murder. And so with the villains duly punished (even if it took way, way too long to finally happen), it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s petty thief is the sly cat.
This story also comes from Lang’s Fairy Books and also features a clever old lady and magical animals. Once upon a time, there was an old woman who lived alone with her only companion in the world – a little goat. Each and every day, the woman would milk her goat and put the milk away in the cupboard to use later. Each and every day, a sly little cat (that did not live with the old woman) would burgle the milk, sneaking into the cupboard and lapping it up. This got on the old woman’s nerves (understandably) and she kept trying to catch the thief in the act.
After several failed attempts, she eventually managed to sneak up on the sneaky little kitty, catch it by the scruff of the neck, and cut off its tail as punishment. I get being angry at the little sneak-thief, but animal cruelty is a bridge too far. I wasn’t entirely on the cat’s side before, but I sure as shit am now. The cat wailed at the pain and the loss, which is only fair. “Meow! Give me back my tail!”
The old woman put her fists on her hips, bloody tail still clutched in one hand. “You bring me my stolen milk and I’ll give you back your tail.” The cat had already drunk the milk, so it couldn’t exactly return it. Losing its tail forever wasn’t an option though, so the clever kitty came up with a third alternative: obtain more milk somehow. Since there wasn’t a 24-hour grocery store (and wouldn’t be for centuries), the cat decided to head to the source – the little goat.
“Meow! Hey there, you beautiful, kind, generous goat. Could I trouble you for a pail of milk perchance? The mean old lady stole my tail and she’ll only give it back if I give her some milk in exchange.” The goat, who lived with the old woman and knew good and well that the cat wasn’t as innocent as it pretended, nodded. “Baa! Tell you what, kitty cat – if you bring me some branches with some tasty leaves from that tree over there, I’ll give you the milk. It’s too high for me to reach, but you’re clever and have good climbing claws. You’ll figure something out.”
Slightly annoyed at this new wrinkle in the plan, the cat raced off to the indicated tree. “Oh tall, sweet-smelling, friendly tree – could I trouble you for a few of your branches? Ones with some especially succulent leaves? I need to trade them to the goat so that I can get some milk to trade to the mean old lady for my tail.” You’re probably starting to see how this goes. It’s very much the same story as one of my favorite episodes of the cartoon show Freakazoid – the one with Lord Bravery trying to get his name back.
The tree’s branches rustled in the breeze. “I could part with some branches I suppose, but only if you fetch me some water from that man with the buckets over yonder.” Muttering feline curses, the cat ran over to the man walking down the road with his heavy burden. “Strong, handsome, friendly man – could I trouble you for some of the water in your pails there? I need to trade it to the tree over yonder for some branches so I can trade the branches to the goat for some milk so I can trade the milk to the mean old woman for my tail.” The foot-sore man considered the yowling cat. “My feet ache in these old boots. If you bring me a new pair of shoes from the cobbler, I’ll give you some of my water.”
This was starting to get out of hand – like the worst kinds of fetch quests – but the cat wasn’t ready to give up on its tail so off it went to the cobbler in town. “Wise, successful, compassionate shoe-maker – could I trouble you for a pair of shoes? I need to trade them to the water-carrier for some water so I can trade the water to the tree for some branches so I can trade the branches to the goat for some milk so I can trade the milk to the mean old woman for my tail.” The cobbler laughed at the image of a cat wearing people-shoes. “I’m getting a little hungry but I’m too busy to go have lunch. Tell you what – you bring me a fresh egg that I can have with my dinner tonight and I’ll give you a pair of shoes.” That’s honestly one hell of a good deal for the cat, who was by now far too irritated to appreciate a bargain.
The can slunk off towards a chicken coop it had passed to talk to the hen living inside. “Wise, proud, benevolent hen – could I trouble you to lay me an egg? I need to trade it to the cobbler for a pair of shoes so I can trade the shoes to the water-carrier for some water so I can trade the water to the tree for some branches so I can trade the branches to the goat for some milk so I can trade the milk to the mean old woman for my tail.” The hen squawked, scratching petulantly at the dirt. “There’s no corn left and no tasty grains. Tell you what – if you go to yonder mill and get me some barley, I’ll lay you an egg.”
At this point, the poor kitty was having to recite the litany of chores in its head to make sure it remembered all the many, many steps. It stopped outside the door of the mill and addressed itself to the building. “Oh sturdy, productive, charitable mill – could I trouble you for some of your barley? I need to trade it to the hen for an egg so I can trade the egg to the cobbler for a pair of shoes so I can trade the shoes to the water-carrier for some water so I can trade the water to the tree for some branches so I can trade the branches to the goat for some milk so I can trade the milk to the mean old woman for my tail.” The cat was a little out of breath at the effort of getting that whole thing out of its feline mouth. The mill considered. “I don’t see why not. There’s some abandoned barley on my threshing floor that my owner has left for the ants and birdies; if they can have it, there’s no reason you can’t take some as well.
Thrilled at having finally reached a middle of this quest, the cat gathered up as much barley as it could carry and raced for the hen. The chicken ruffled her feathers and laid an egg, which the cat ran over to the cobbler in exchange for the shoes. These were more difficult for the little thing to carry but it managed through sheer bloody-mindedness and reached the water-carrier. The man let the cat take a pail over to splash water around the tree’s roots while he put on his new shoes, prompting the tree to shiver and drop a branch covered in leaves. This the cat awkwardly dragged to the goat who began munching happily and uh somehow managed to give the cat a pail of milk without either her or the cat having, you know, hands. However it happened, the cat carried the milk into the house to the old woman.
“Here’s your milk back. You would not believe how much trouble I had to go through to get that for you, but it’ll be worth it to have my tail back. Now gimmee.” The woman rolled her eyes at the impatient cat (who has my support even more than before) but handed over the severed tail. The cat took it and raced off to try and reattach it but it didn’t exactly have access to modern surgery. It tried to put it back with blood and spit, but that predictably failed. It then tried tree resin, and tar, and even harsh glue, but it was no use. Nothing could seem to reattach the poor kitty’s missing tail and so, to this day, this naughty kitty is tailless, marked as a sign of its thieving ways.
The moral of the story is helpfully laid out explicitly at the end. Wickedness is always punished (which is demonstrably not true). Nothing valuable can be gotten without labor (though it doesn’t have to be your labor obviously). And the mark of a great sin cannot be erased. I don’t really think that a hungry cat stealing a meal is a quote unquote “great sin”, but Mr. Lang didn’t ask my opinion.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. We are also now on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’re headed to central Europe for this year’s holiday special. You’ll see that washing your hands can bring unexpected rewards, that being cruel can cause unexpected heartache, and that letting fairies have a rave in your living room can result in a Christmas tradition. Then, in Gods and Monsters, what do Halloween and Christmas have in common? No, not that we do a special episode for both of them – they both feature cackling old women on broomsticks soaring across the night sky. At least, they do in Italy. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.