SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Kattar Sonr 149
too, as was mentioned above, the cat appears as the
draught animals of Freyja. The description there of the
fetter Gleipnir which is used to bind the Wolf Fenrir also
displays knowledge of the cat. One of the things that
went to its making was kattar dynr, "the noise of the cat"
- and everybody knows that there is no noise when a cat
runs (engi dynr veriJr af hlaupi kattarins) , for it was all
used up to make the fetter. Utgarea-Loki also produced
a "rather large" cat for Thor to lift. The cat must have
been completely familiar to Snorri and his contemporaries.
We find in the Miracle Book of St Thorldk that the dog
and cat are counted natural domestic animals on an
Icelandic farm.P This comes in origin from II99,
contemporary with Snorri's younger years. In the
NiiJrstigningar saga, a twelfth-century Norwegian (or
Icelandic?) translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus, we find
that the word (rnouse-rtrap is translated as trekQttr
"wood-cat" - the cat was the usual mouse-catcher.i"
Bernstrom also mentions the fact that kott», kausi,
ketlingr, kettuhryggr were used as surname or nickname but
that the reasons for their use cannot be determined. The
use of kettuhryggr was probably based on a comparison
between a hunchback and a cat arching its back, but we
have absolutely no means of deciding what lay behind the
other cat-names: an individual may have looked like a cat,
owned a cat, behaved like a cat.
It was not flattering to be called "cat", any more than
it is today. In the Orkneyinga saga Earl Porfinn urges
Kalf Amason to attack by saying: "You do not mean to
lie her sem kQttr i hreysi while I fight for both of us?"
Then Kalf joins in. 14 It is assumed that here the
hreysikQttr was meant.
But when round about the year 1000 Snorri g06i in
Iceland calls two of his sons kausi "pussy" and his
12 L. Larsson, Isldndska hundskriften. N° 645 4° i den Arnamagnceanska
samlingen (I88S), 5 16 - 16
" C. R. Unger, Heilagra manna s6gur (I877), II 5'°.
14 Sigurour NordaJ, Orkneyinga saga (I9I3-I4), 70.