The Cat and the End of the World
A short Frisian children’s saga, told on winter evenings in the Greidhoeke. A cat knows, the old Frisians say, how and when the world will end. And she sits on her terp and waits.
1 The cat and the mouse
On a Frisian terp sat a great black cat, purring. Before her ran a mouse. The cat did not catch the mouse. The mouse stopped and asked: «Why do you not catch me, cat?» The cat said: «I am waiting for the end of the world. I want to be sitting here when it comes.»
2 The mouse’s question
The mouse asked: «How then does the world end?» The cat purred on and said: «First the suns will go out. Then the trees will fall. Then the Frisian terps will sink in the sea. And when the last terp sinks, I shall come floating up on a rush-stool and I shall be the last living soul.» The mouse asked: «And us mice?» «You are gone long since, little one,» said the cat. «Run on.»
3 The cat and the man
A Frisian farmer came by and heard the cat speaking to the mouse. He asked: «Cat, when does the end come?» The cat looked at him and said: «Do not ask me that, man. We know it among ourselves. You do not know it, and you should not know it. For whoever knows the day of his death lives no more.» The farmer went home. He forgot the whole matter within a week, for he had work enough. The cat stayed on the terp, and sits there, they say in the Greidhoeke, to this day. And the world has not yet ended, but the cat purrs and purrs, and she knows better.
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