Photos, page 2

  Nursery rhymes, classical music, ballet and musicals - our feline friends can be found in all of them. In ancient Egypt the cat was often depicted playing the sistrum - an instrument played at banquets and in religious ceremonies. Its sacred image was also frequently found carved upon such instruments. Moncrif asserted that the Egyptians allowed cats to attend their banquets to sing along with the music of the sistrum. In this country the cat was portrayed from medieval times onward playing a musical instrument - only this time it was the fiddle, or occasionally, the bagpipes. The sign of the Cat and the Fiddle was a fairly common choice for an inn or tavern. The origin of some of these inn signs is obscure, but some of them are thought to be a reference to the olden day rhyme which runs:
     A cat came fiddling out of a barn
     With a pair of bagpipes under her arm;
     She could sing nothing but 'fiddle-cum fee'
     The mouse has married the bumble bee