FOLKLORE & CATS

Cats seem to love sitting on the doorstep and this is something that they used to do from the old days, when Noah was still building his ark...
After God commanded Noah he started building the Ark so he could take aboard two of every animal and bird to repopulate the world as God decided that it was time to destroy the wolrd again...with a big flood. Apparenlty Noah worked for more than 100 years to build that Ark and finally when it was ready all the animals were loaded two-by-two, male and female.
As the dark clouds started gathering it was time for Noah to close the door of the Ark and seal it. Except from a small hitch...
Mrs. Noah was refusing to come aboard as Noah wouldn't her bring into the Ark her cat. The reason for that was that Noah already had two cats on board and had told her that she had to leave her tabby behind. The cat seemed to be fond of Mr Noah but also he was very good in catching mice something of a problem in a small place where there are only two mice alive and they needed to repopulate the earth....
But Mrs Noah was a very stubborn woman and refused to back down...She was sick and tired of Noah and his ark as he spent more than 100 years doing nothing else than building it.
The argument was going on for well with none of them willing to comprise but when the rain started pouring down made up Noah's mind as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her aboard... "You Devil! Get on board and bring that lousy cat with you!" Now the Devil was hiding nearby just waiting for such an invitation and as Noah pulled his wife in, he changed into a large red rat with pointed ears and a forked tail, scampered aboard and disappeared quickly inside the ark ready to start causing havoc as he used to.
Noah closed the and the flood started. According to the story it rained and rained and rained for 40 days and 40 nights and the earth was covered with water and all llife was perished except that aboard Mr. Noah's Ark. What you don't know is that while the storm raged ouside, a mostly silent argument continued with similar force within. But while it was raining outside the red rat inside starting working on his evil plan! He was gnawing away trying to make a hole in the bottom of the ark.
While Noah and his wife were still arguing about the cat and the long hours Noah had put into the building of this Ark, the cat herself was constantly under Noah's feet. Its affections were harshly rebuffed again and again as it rubbed against his legs or tried to sleep in his lap.
One day Noah tripped over the cat and the story has it that he landed into a pile of elephant dung that Mrs. Noah was shoveling out a port hole. Noah finally lost it completely and started shouting at Mrs Noah who didn't stay quiet either. But while those two were arguing the cat tried to stay away and so she came upon the red stowaway deep in the hold gnawing busily away. The cat recognised the rat straight away and knew immediately what he was up to. She pounced at him, grabbed him and hurried off to to present its prey as a gift to Noah.
But Noah wasn't pleased with the cat's gift and in a sudden busrt of fury tossed the cat with her prey over the side.
The cat released the rat as she hit the water and the Devil returned to his original form and started swimming away, as then Noah fianlly realized what had really happened. The cat had just saved his Ark.Immediately he fished the cat out of the water with a net. At that moment, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time in many days and the cat sat on the step in the sun drying itself. To this day, cats love to sit in the sun, remembering how once a cat saved the world.