March 1, 2016 - When I was very young I heard people say that cats had nine lives. I did not know exactly what that meant but thought it was a lot of nonsense. However, as I have grown older, I have grown wiser. I realize that there is actually a lot more to this saying than at first meets the eye.
So, where did this particular myth come from, and how true is it? You may be surprised to find out that it does have a very strong basis of truth, but not set in magic as we sometimes like to imagine, but in the law of physics.
Cats have always been revered animals, and partly this is due to their seeming remarkable resistance to harm. They have an inbred ability to escape death by a whisker. However, times were not always this good to be the cat for in medieval Europe the strange ritual of throwing cats from high towers became a popular event.
There is a legend that Baldwin III, Count of Ypres, on one occasion threw a considerable number of cats from a tower in the town. It is not known how many survived this particular occasion, but it has been noted that more often than not, they did. Indeed the keeper of the castle at this time recorded the following words in his diary, “In spite of the height of the fall, the animals ran off quickly so that it might never be caught again in a similar ceremony.”
This event is remembered to this day and is now celebrated with an annual cat festival. But the festival no longer uses live cats. This cruel practice ended in 1817. Today, it is more of a matter of fun as the procession winds through the town towards the 70 meter high “Cloth Hall” where they enter the tower and throw toy cats from the top, and the children attempt to catch them.
Another very old fable perhaps contributed to the idea that cats have nine lives. This is the story. A very hungry cat entered a house one Sunday night and found a plate of nine small fish that were going to be eaten for dinner by the starving children who lived there. The cat was feeling a little selfish and ate up all of the fish in nine quick bites. With no food on the table the nine starving children all died of hunger the very next day, along with the cat for eating way too much. When the cat entered Heaven and spoke with God, God was so angry with the cat that he threw him out of heaven. The cat fell for nine days all the way back to earth. To this day, the cat has the nine lives of the starving children in his belly, which is why he must die nine different times before he will stay dead.
Through these so-called miracles of survival comes the basis of today’s adage that a cat has nine lives. How else would one survive such falls without magic?
But, science has since stepped in. For in the 19th century a French physiologist by the name of Etienne-Jules Marey conducted a remarkable experiment. With the use of a camera he took a series of photographs (60 per second) that captured the process of a cat falling. What these photographs captured was the cat twisting and maneuvering its head, back, legs, and tail to lessen the impact. They always landed on their paws.
So, cats, it would seem, have an inbuilt instinct for physics and not magic. Although cats do not have nine lives, they do seem to. Cats can fall from tremendous heights, and jump seven times their tail length.
Scientists have also discovered that the purring of cats is a “natural healing mechanism” that has helped inspire the myth that they have nine lives. Wounded cats purr because it helps their bones and organs to heal and grow stronger, so say researchers who have analyzed the purring of different feline species. This, they say, explains why cats can survive falls from high buildings, and why they are said to have “nine lives”.
One last legend that is associated with the Biblical story of Noah and the ark that many of you have never heard. It is said that there weren’t any domestic cats when Noah built the ark, but there were rats and mice on board. They reproduced and soon there were too many vermin. Noah asked the lion for help, so the lion sneezed and this is when the first domestic cats appeared to help rid the vermin inside the ark.
So, there you have the answer to the age-old question about our cats and whether or not they really do have nine lives.
