THE ACCURSED HICKORY CAT

There’s an old story I’d like to share with you this morning which possibly originates around the docklands area of one of the larger ports of Blogfordshire and which I thought you might enjoy hearing. This is the troublesome tale of the “Accursed Hickory Cat”.

Legend has it that many years ago, an old sailor came ashore one night after many weeks at sea visiting exotic, distant shores and, as sailors were wont to do, he had a number of lustful desires and so he headed off towards the area of the town where “ladies of the night” were known to ply their trade.

Now because he was a bit of an old rogue and still something of a charmer, he got “lucky” fairly quickly, and indeed he thought he was very lucky that night, as she was rather a pretty, dark-haired young girl who was a little naïve and had only very recently taken to the business of performing favours for sailors.

As is the nature of these things, the deed was done, details of which we really don’t need to hear about here. Sadly, however, it was only afterwards that he confessed to the young lady that he had no means to pay her, and arrogantly made to leave. Then, of course, the rather pretty naïve young thing transformed into something of a wildcat and immediately started to shout and scream and holler, and began to beat him with her fists.

Now, because he was so toughened by his life at sea, and because she was such a slight young girl, this attempted beating didn’t really have much effect, in fact he was just highly amused at what he thought was this silly little creature thrashing at him, not least because he thought her to be pretty stupid for not asking for the money beforehand, and he just laughed and laughed at her as she carried on taking swings at him, which only made her madder.

She very quickly wore herself out and sat there in a corner of the room crying to herself and quietly cursing him. Sadly, the old sailor hadn’t realised that she had gypsy blood in her, otherwise a God-fearing seaman such as himself might have paid more attention to her curses. Instead, as she was so tired out, he realised that there was nothing she could do now to stop him from just leaving, and as he headed out of the door, he just kept on mocking her, which only made her angrier and angrier at what he’d done to her and how he thought he would get away with it.

As he reached for the doorknob, he remembered that he’d forgotten his little canvas bag, and that was the last thing he ever remembered, because as he turned around to go and fetch it, the young girl bashed him over the head with it, killing him instantly. Unfortunately for the sailor he’d been carrying in his bag a carved wooden cat that he had whittled from a piece of hickory wood for his young daughter who he’d planned to visit later.

Realising what she had done, the girl grabbed her few belongings and fled, leaving the scratched and bruised body, the bloody bag and the hickory cat to be found alone in the room the next morning.

Rather tragically, after the hue and cry had calmed down, three months later the girl was spotted back in the very same port trying to catch a boat to France, and, as was the way of things in those times, recognised by one of her former friends who gladly took the reward money, but didn’t survive long enough to spend much of it. The girl was very quickly tried and sentenced to be executed for the crime, but she managed to plead her belly because she had fallen pregnant by that old sailor, and after the child was born, was transported to the colonies.

As to the hickory cat of course, after the body had been removed, the cat was nowhere to be found. It had definitely been there when the body was discovered, but had vanished, and no one claimed to know where it was. It was rumoured that the girl’s father had been the one who had made her go and work the streets and it was he who had sneaked into the room and spirited the cat away, or maybe the girl’s mother had come along and taken it as a gift for the unborn child as, being of gypsy blood, she would have known about the baby, of course.

People will talk, and in the intervening three months there was endless speculation and tales of mystery and imagination grew up around that dreadful incident in the sad little room. As time went by, so the legends and the exaggerations grew, and with the death of the girl’s betrayer, then the stories of the curse began. Shortly afterwards, someone suggested that the cat had been carved from the peg leg of an infamous pirate captain and it was steeped in the blood of the innocent. Another told everyone that it was made from the branch of a magic tree in a faraway unknown land, a dark magic so strong that mere men could never overcome its power.

The years passed, and so the stories grew. Some told of the time an entire house burnt down around it, but when the ashes were cleared all that was found untouched was that hickory cat. Others mentioned that the hickory cat was always in the room when a body was found to have spontaneously combusted, its dark eyes staring malevolently whenever the body was found, but gone a few minutes later, leaving a slight aroma of cured meats in the air. Many believe that anyone who has ever possessed it has been touched by that powerful gypsy curse and that if you ever came to possess it you should throw it away or pass it on as soon as you could. Some have apparently tried to burn it only to find it the next day lying untouched in the grate, staring up at them defiantly.

What happened to the child born from that fateful union that evening remains unclear, although seventy years later, the hickory cat was found under the bed of a former publican by one of the members of his grieving family. The publican’s wife survived him. She was slightly older than him and only that day found out that she was also his half sister, adding more evidence to the stories of the curse. The cat was supposed to be locked inside the strongbox they found, which was also wrapped in thick chains with a note stuck to it warning them not to open it, and why.

As far as anyone knows, they threw the box in the ocean. Whether the cat was inside it, we’ll have to leave to the quantum physicists to determine.