Kilkenny cats

The once well-known Irish folktale of the two cats who fight until only their tails and nails are left masks an allusion in medieval Irish history. At issue is the enmity between the Anglo-Norman or ‘English’ settlers in Ireland and the native Gaelic Irish who were separated by only a small stream in the town of Kilkenny, Leinster. As they had the upper hand legally, the Anglo-Normans sought to preserve their privileged status with the Statute of Kilkenny, 1367. This attributed all lawlessness to the Irish, proscribed intermarriage between the two communities, prohibited the English from entertaining Irish minstrels, or even from riding horseback in the Irish manner.

Modern commentators now dismiss the once current explanation of the story as pertaining to actual rather than to metamorphic cats. This asserted that Hessian troops stationed in Kilkenny during the 1798 rebellion would tie two cats together by their tails, hang them over a line, and watch them fight to the death.