As I write this, Christmas is fast approaching and so I started thinking about Christmas cat legends!
Probably the most famous Xmas cat is NOT one of your cute Christmas cats, but rather a giant feline monster! Enter Jólakötturinn the yule cat! The AtlasObscura says this Christmas cat of Iceland was a black cat the size of a house, who would eat children who weren't wearing new clothes on Christmas! The origins of the story of the yule cat are hazy, but the Reykjavik Grapevine says written records of Jólakötturinn go back to the 19th century.
Much like we might say "Santa's watching" to a misbehaving child to get them to behave, children in Iceland might have been warned to be good so that they would get something new to wear on Christmas and avoid being eaten by the montruous yuletide cat. Beyond that, the AtlasObscura also notes that it was a warning against lazyness. In a time where clothes were handmade from wool, something new to wear was a painstaking process that the entire household had to partipate in. Wool had to be carded, spun into yarn and then knit into garments to wear, and you had to get it done in time for Christmas if you were to avoid being eaten by the Yule cat! The threat of being eaten by a large black cat would help focus on working! No wonder Iceland has such a strong work ethic!
PBS even featured the Iceland christmas cat on their show Monstrum, give it a look if you have 10 minutes or so!
I also found a much less deadly Christmas cat legend, this one featuring a tabby kitten and the baby Jesus. Dustycatwriter shares the story that she heard on Paul Harvey's the rest of the story, and it goes like this... it was was cold in the manger where the newborn baby Jesus had been lain. He was crying because of the cold and an observant tabby cat noticed he didn't have any fur to keep him warm, so decided to let him borrow hers. She snuggled up next to him and purred to soothe him. The legend goes that upon seeing this, the virgin Mary stroked the cat's head and catster.com says that that is the reason why to this day, tabby cats have an "M" on their foreheads!
I hope you enjoyed these cat xmas legends! What about you, do you know any other cat christmas stories?
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