What character traits are characteristic of cats?

The image of a cat played a huge role in the solemn funeral processions of Ancient Egypt, served as decoration for altars and sacrifices, and was the guardian of the hearth. And how many legends, historical tales and traditions are associated with them, what importance they had in the home and social life of both individuals and entire nations.

It has long been a custom to attribute special significance to cats. The image of a cat irresistibly attracted the attention of artists, sculptors and poets. We find the first image of a cat already in the paintings of Egyptian tombs, on ancient Greek and Italian monuments, in the paintings of ancient Pompeii and even in rock paintings. The image of a cat in art is multifunctional. For the ancients, her image had a sacred meaning; in the scenes of the Italian and Northern Renaissance it served as a symbol and emblem.

CAT is an animal of the cat family. According to archeology, cats have settled next to humans since he began to lead a sedentary lifestyle. But these were just wild cats eating garbage. In medieval Europe, references to cats are few; it was only around the 10th century that the cat ceased to be a valuable rarity. Around the same time, it appeared in Russia. In Europe, cats, until the “Black Death” epidemic, when their function as exterminators of small rodents (mice, rats) was appreciated, were not popular and often became victims of prejudice. The cat is one of the 12 animals named after the years of the Chinese calendar.

We enter the world of folklore in very early childhood, as soon as we learn to speak and hear. The schoolchild encounters proverbs, sayings and fairy tales in the primer and first reading books. From folklore, a teenager learns that happiness cannot be imagined without work and steadfastness of moral principles. Most folklore works and fairy tales are unthinkable without fantasy. Cat and cat are heroes of many folklore works. Many signs, proverbs and sayings are associated with them. After all, both the cat and the cat were always close to a person, and a person could always observe them, notice behavioral features characteristic only of this animal. According to ancient belief, cats are associated with the other world, with the world of dreams and dreams, which is why there are many lullabies about cats! And how many riddles, nursery rhymes, jokes, counting rhymes, tongue twisters, fairy tales, in which the image of cats in Russian folk art - Russian folklore is presented with particular interest!

There are many types of folklore in the Russian language, and they are all united by the cat.

The cat is “a conductor between the human world and the other world”

The cat is both a link between worlds and at the same time a victim. It is believed that all animals born blind see the evil spirit. Cats certainly fall into this category. Without seeing or feeling evil spirits around us, we are in no way connected with another world, unlike a cat, which stands on the border of these worlds and brings creatures from the “other” world into “our” world. The world of animals may be interesting in itself, but in fairy tales it is “spiritualized and imagined by the human imagination.” No matter what the cat does, it still tries to help its owner. As an example of selfless help, one can cite the fairy tale “The Wise Wife,” where a man sells a cat on a ship sailing to a distant country where cats are not found. There she helps the “shipman”, to whom she has become attached, killing the rats that threaten him only out of a sense of devotion, not guided by selfish considerations. Then the new owner - the "ship owner" - sells the cat for a large sum of money. This tale is also different in that here the cat does not speak humanly, but is simply an animal, while in most other tales it acts like a person.

Throughout the two thousand-year history of European civilization, the only “friend of man” was the dog - on the eve of the third, we finally became friends with the cat. In the ruins of one of the first settlements of the ancient Slavs, among the ruins of houses and buildings, there were also cat skeletons. Archaeologists found one of them among the remains of a locked barn - and at the entrance to the destroyed building, the skeleton of a girl of about ten was discovered, clutching a key in her hand - the child was in a hurry to help the cat, but did not have time. Until now, our folklore and superstitions have retained deep respect for Kot Kotofeich: the cat must be the first to enter a new home, and “killing a cat means not seeing happiness for seven years.” Until the revolution, merchants had an unspoken competition: who had the thickest and sleekest cat. It is no coincidence that the cat took the warmest place in Slavic mythology. Russian folklore closely connects the cat with the brownie: the cat is the helper, the brownie’s “little animal”, the brownie is the “master”, the cat is the “mistress”. A folklore cat can see brownies, mermaids, kikimoras and devils: if the cat suddenly perks up and looks with interest into an empty corner, one of them is clearly lurking around there. She has another important role: the cat – the Russian Charon. It is the cat that escorts the soul of the deceased to the next world and shows him the way.

Cat and modernity

The cat, as you know, walks on its own - and yet, it has been on its way with a person since time immemorial. Scientific and technological progress has freed man from believing in both good gods and evil demons. And yet, the cat still remains for us something more than just “a small predator of the cat family, domesticated more than 7 thousand years ago.”