Marc, The Butter-Loving Cat

 

As told by Suzy

            Once, before our time, there was a certain little house made of stones and wood. It was like a fairytale cottage of the best type. The little house was situated at the entry to a wild and deep forest. The forest was seldom entered by man or man’s companion animals. It was too forbidding. Just like the forests in all the fairytales, the thorns must have been two whole inches long. If one insisted on entering this forest, all sound became muffled. The air was still, stifling.
            Besides Sofie, in this house lived a cat. He was one of those famous butter-colored toms. His name was Marc. He was a lover of butter, as a purely sane fellow. That’s where the old lady who also lived in the house comes into this story. Many cats are provided with a saucer of cream in the morning. It’s true! However, this old lady made and sold butter, since she possessed two adorable doe-eyed light brownish cows, Elsa and Helga.
            Marc received a pat of butter each morning, before going out to hunt. Not only did Marc keep Elsa and Helga’s barn clear of mice, but he also crept into the dark deep forest looking for better prey. Sometimes a rabbit, sometimes a serpent. If he caught a big rabbit he brought it home to Sophie to cook for both of them.
            As you can imagine, once Marc had eaten his butter and licked the little green glass saucer clean, he thanked Sofie and slipped out of the daytime cat door. At night it was closed, so Marc did have to be home before night.
            Anyhow, he went out to hunt. First the barn. No mice scurried before him. Clear.
            So Marc set out to enter the dark forest, by a certain little tunnel he had built through the bottom of the thorny vines. First he flushed out a robin. No dealing with that. Then he was insulted by a pair of noisy crows. He ignored them.
            “Get to the point of the story, Suzy,” I said.
            “OK, here goes,” she said.
            Leaving the crows behind, Marc paced deeper and deeper into the forest. Presently, as they used to say, he came to a huge old grampa of a tree. Perhaps it was a cedar. They are special anyhow. Down near its roots was a rather obscure looking opening, like some animal’s home burrow. Marc felt that he had never seen it before. He was intrigued.
            As he was considering whether he had indeed never seen this burrow before, someone popped out of it. Marc sat back on his haunches and wrapped his long yellow tail around himself.
            Oh, you know the type of creature it was. He was about the size of a big rabbit, but upright in carriage like a man. Like all the folk of his breed, he looked wise and cruel and crafty. His skin was the color of forest loam, as was his little knitted tunic. His feet were too big for his body and bare. His eyes were black as currants, but a lot more shiny. His grey hair was plaited into two braids which hung forward over his little shoulders. Likewise he had a long grey beard, braided in one long plait. He smiled at Marc.

 

Hello, well met, Marc.
Yes I know your name!
Come with me!
Down in earth below,
I have the finest butter a cat could wish for!
All for you!

 

            Marc laughed, thinking of Sofie and Elsa and Helga and the green glass saucer.

 

Oh, Levon. Yes I know your name!

I see that you think me simple.
Not so!
May God confound you!
I’ll not go below.

 

            The little fellow screamed a scream of dinner thwarted and frustration, turned on his gnarly little heel and vanished into his burrow, which vanished likewise behind him.

            “I didn’t think I had seen this hole before,” said wise Marc, the butter-loving cat.

            On the way home after all of that he caught a mole and had it for his supper. He arrived home long before dark, entering the cat door in Sophie’s door and took a lovely nap in front of her little blue enameled stove. Later, Sophie shared her chicken stew with him, then she put the plank over the cat door, so no creatures could creep in during the night.

The End

 

            “That’s a pretty good story, Suzy. I didn’t know you had it in you,” I said.

            “Thanks,” said Suzy with a smile and in a little creaky voice.

            “By the way, how did Marc know the faery’s name,” I wondered.

            “The crows told him he better look out for Levon,” she said. “They were rudely teasing him.”

            “And how did Levon know Marc’s name,” I said.

            “Snooping at windows, hanging around Sophie’s barn,” said Suzy.

            “Well, that ties it all up into a neat bow!” I said.

 

That’s The Real End

😸