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2020 Reader Question 33

2020 Reader Question 33 published on 15 Comments on 2020 Reader Question 33

There are a number of mythical cats who, while being as intelligent as humans, have decided to pretend to be mundane cats around humans. Some are more convincing than others, and critters like Cheshire cats can sometimes get weird looks. This also happens with some dog creatures, but for some reason it happens most often with cats.

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The name “Jellicle” comes from an unpublished poem by T. S. Eliot entitled “Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats”, where “Pollicle dogs” is a corruption of “poor little dogs” and “Jellicle cats” of “dear little cats”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellicle_cats

The more you know :) **rainbow**

“Jellicle Cats come out tonight/Jellicle Cats come one come all:/The Jellicle Moon is shining bright-/Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.”
–Song of the Jellicles, from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

I don’t know about unpublished T.S.Eliot, but I know well the published book of Jellicle (and other) cats that everyone has already probably seen. The Song does indicate that a jellicle cat is black and white, cheerful, and has a musical voice They sort of ruined it in the musical Cats, saying that Jellicles were any colour you like, and basically saying that all cats were Jellicle…. There is also a poem about the “Pekes and the Pollicles” in there, in which the Pollicles go up against their foes, the Pekinese. Books! Yaay!

I seem to recall that it comes from ‘Jell Ickle’, with ‘Jell’ being little old British lady speak for ‘good’, and ‘Ickle’ being the same for ‘little’ (Jellicle cats are rather small).

So imagine being a poet and being inspired by some little old pepperpot crooning to the little kitty she’s putting out some sardines for. “Who’s a jell ickle cat, then? Yes you are!”

I wonder if Raven would be a good character in this book? You know the trickster, the ” once the Raven never more” guy.

Edgar Allan Poe’s raven ( “quoth the raven: ‘Nevermore~'”), or the Native American trickster god Raven? They might actually be the same entity if Poe’s raven was aware of how much he was mentally torturing the poem’s narrator.

Or, it could’ve just been a normal raven that had been raised by a bugbear to mess with people. :P Mind screw = always a bugbear involved.

I think they might be one and the same. But then again I did just get done listening to a series where it had a character that was Raven but was described as a spirit of the land. The series was written by Rachel Aaron. The first book is called nice dragons finish last. I would suggest listening to the series or reading it depending on your point of view on those kinds of things.

Every time someone here asks about the Jellicle cats, I’m reminded of a short story I read once. I don’t remember exactly which magazine I read it in, but it was one of those “anthology” magazines, like Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Anyway, this woman is scratching her dog’s belly, when she notices something that feels like a zipper, so she grabs it and pulls… and it is a zipper. Out pops a little man in a loincloth, who starts complaining that she won’t ever have a dog again because she “broke the rules”. He grabs a suitcase, packs his food bowl, his water bowl, and a box of dog biscuits (“Thanks for all the dog biscuits. Except for the green ones, they taste like soap.”) and walks out the door.

So she looks up at her cat, who is sitting on the coffee table licking its paw. It stops, looks back at her, and says “Don’t look at me! I told him that zipper was too damn big!” xD

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