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On our journeys, when Brendan would stop to show the Book to another group of people, I would gather their cats — abbey cats and farm cats and bakery cats and the cats of great estate — and tell them of Iona, the isle that nurtured the Book the way my mother’s belly nurtured me. Our world was changing, and I wanted the old ways to be remembered. Once I had gathered them, I would begin thus.
I don’t remember how I ended up on the tiny island of Iona.
I remember my earliest life through a misty haze. Warmth and the tickle of fur in my nose. The big rumbly purrs of my mother and our little snuffly, tentative purrs. The scent and flavor of her rich milk. The protesting squeaks of my siblings as I crawled over them in search of my favorite nipple. There were, too, occasional times of fear — when our mother disappeared and we did not know why.
My human charge, companion — Aidan — believed we had been stowed away on a supply boat by my mother and brought on shore with the supplies. That was why he sometimes called me his Supply Cat. But mostly he called me Pangur Bán, white fuller.
“It’s a perfect name for you, my furry friend,” he would say in his quiet voice with its hint of roughness, “because you do so like to knead your little paws on my woolen robes. And your little claws dig into me if you’re not careful!” he added, rubbing his thigh.
You will all understand what I mean when I lament that I had been having such a lovely daydream, all about my mother and her soft belly that gave me milk if I kneaded and suckled it just right. But he made a little sound of pain and plucked at my claws where they’d sunk into his woolly covering and pricked into his tender thigh. Humans have such inadequate fur, it is no wonder they take the hair of sheep to wear.
Since the holy law of cats forbids us from using human language, I blinked my odd eyes, one blue and one green, up into his, and emitted a “Prrt.”
The island home, where I spent my first years, was quiet. There was a community of brothers, as they called themselves, who toiled in silence at all the things humans must do to survive — grow and cook their food, make their body coverings, build the structures they sleep and sing and study in. They would raise their voices only to chant, and the song they poured forth was both simple and complex, like my mother’s purr had been. I would crouch in the doorway of their ritual house and listen (pretending to watch the birds outside) and the brothers would wink at me slyly when they came and went, because they knew why I was really there.
My Aidan didn’t participate in most of the work the others did. He lived a little apart in his own wood-and-thatch hut. Once a day, a brother would bring him whatever he needed to sustain himself and to continue his mysterious toil. He told to me the names humans gave to some of these things — vellum and oak berries and goose feathers, which he carefully pared before use.
The feathers were irresistible to play with. How thunderous would grow his brow when I stole them for my own amusement. He would chase me around the hut until I hid in a corner with my prize.
Later, as we came to know each other better, he made sure to save me old feathers he had grown tired of when he changed them for new. In exchange I left the new ones for his use. The relationship between a cat and their human charge — so my mother, wise in the ways of such things, used to tell her kittens — could be a delicate thing, for they understand so little at times. Compromise is sometimes needed.
If absconding with his feathers strained our relationship, however, my hunting prowess did not. Often he praised my diligent hunting, without which far too many mice would have tried to make the warm hut their home too.
Although, other than that, I am not sure why he thought so highly of the way I carried out my task. He did not hunt himself, so it was not a matter of appreciating the skill of a competitor. He refused to eat the killed mice I brought him. Nor could he seem to grasp the proper ways of killing — part of the holy law of cats, which is passed to us via our mothers’ milk. After several awkward attempts at lessons, I was resigned to eating the mice myself.
All right, I admit it was not such a hardship, eating mice that had grown fat by stealing some of the brothers’ stored grain.
Other than my visits to the house of song, I watched over Aidan and adopted his reclusive ways, secluding myself when his visitors came, coming out when he was alone, hunting mice in the dark hours.
One night, warm and musical with the songs of insects, my Aidan slid his big hands under my belly and picked me up (the indignity!). He set me on the surface he used for his mysterious labor of putting marks on vellum.
“I have written you a poem,” he said, indicating the scratchings he’d made. “May I read it to you?”
“Meow,” I said in the language we use to speak to humans. In that context, of course, it meant “Yes, please do,” rather than “I desire to be stroked by your hands, or warmed in your lap.”
I then had the rare treat of hearing my charge’s voice. He spoke in a language somewhat different from yours, dear cats, but this is the gist of what he said.
I and Pangur Bán my cat,
Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is her delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.Better far than praise of men
Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
She too plies her simple skill.Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.'Gainst the wall she sets her eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.When a mouse darts from its den
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and she has hers.Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in her trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
I showed my pleasure at his tribute by crawling into his arms and purring up a storm.
Our solitary life was happy. This is the lesson I wish you all to remember and preserve. For the raiders came and changed everything. May they never reach these lands, but if they do: preserve the knowledge of the quiet ways of a guardian cat and their human charge, the importance of time devoted to perfecting one’s art, whatever it might be — scratching on vellum, or dispatching mice, or developing just the right overtones in your purr.
The raiders came.
The brothers who unloaded the supply boats, who would set aside their vows of silence to speak with the boatmen, heard rumors of the warriors from the north, who cared not for worship or scholarship, but only for gold washed in the blood of their victims.
To tell you the truth, I think the brothers trusted a little too much in the deity they sang to, and blindly hoped their god would protect them from the marauders. But for whatever reason — perhaps their god was too weak, or engaged elsewhere, or (Aidan insisted to me) fulfilling some larger purpose that was unknown to him — the Vikings came.
The Vikings soaked their stolen gold in the blood of sixty-eight men that day.
Aiden believes he and I were the only ones to escape. He begged to be spared the burden of living on when all the others might perish, but they all agreed the Book needed to be preserved and he was the one who needed to protect it and find a way to finish it. So in the end he was not given a choice, but the Abbot insisted that he hide himself and his marked-vellum creation under sacks in the bottom of the supply boat. There I hid myself also, for it was my job to protect with my life my companion and what he prized, as it is today.
We slipped by the Vikings under cover of night, watching in horror as the flames from the burning of the singing house licked the sky. The demon all cats once feared, Crom Cruach, could scarcely have received a greater sacrifice.
Our little supply boat came to shore near the Abbey of Kells, and it was there that the Book found its new illustrator, and I my new companion, Brother Brendan.
That part of the tale I’ll save for another time, my litter-mates. The moon sails high across the sky tonight, and cool breezes tell us of harvest and oncoming autumn, and it is time to ply our skill, to enjoy rich hunting.