# Belling the Cat

4/25/15

Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case.

"You will all agree," said he, "that our chief danger consists in the sly and treacherous manner in which the enemy approaches us. Now, if we could receive some signal of her approach, we could easily escape from her. I venture, therefore, to propose that a small bell be procured, and attached by a ribbon round the neck of the Cat. By this means we should always know when she was about, and could easily retire while she was in the neighbourhood."

This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: "That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?"

The mice looked at one another and nobody spoke. Then the old mouse said:

"It is easy to propose impossible remedies."

## Notes

- Karen Montgomery
  4/25/15 at 10:33pm • Edit

  Did you know that Belling the Cat is a fable also known under the titles The Bell and the Cat and The Mice in Council ? Although often attributed to Aesop, it was not recorded before the Middle Ages and has been confused with the quite different fable of Classical origin titled The Cat and the Mice. In the classificatory system established for the fables by B. E. Perry, it is numbered 613, which is reserved for Mediaeval attributions outside the Aesopic canon.

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- Virginia Fowler
  4/25/15 at 10:51pm in reply to Karen Montgomery • Edit

  The fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat!

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