ith Art, the King's Steward, or would stand
with him while the herdsmen drove the cattle into the byres. Then he
would listen to what Art related to him. And one evening he heard Art
say, "The most remarkable event that happened was the coming into this
land of the King of the Cats."

"I will listen to what you tell me about it," said the King's Son.
"Then," said Art, the King's Steward, "to your father's Son in all truth
be it told"--

The King of the Cats stood up. He was a grand creature. His body was
brown and striped across as if one had burned on wood with a hot poker.
Like all the race of the Royal Cats of the Isle of Man he was without a
tail. But he had extraordinarily fine whiskers. They went each side of
his face to the length of a dinner-dish. He had such eyes that when he
turned one of them upward the bird that was flying across dropped from
the sky. And when he turned the other one down he could make a hole in
the floor.

He lived in the Isle of Man. Once he had been King of the Cats of
Ireland and Britain, of Norway and Denmark, and the whole Northern and
Western World. But after the Norsemen won in the wars the Cats of Norway
and Britain swore by Thor and Odin that they would give him no more
allegiance. So for a hundred years and a day he had got allegiance
only from the Cats of the Western World; that is, from Ireland and the
Islands beyond.

The tribute he received was still worth having. In May he was sent a
boatful of herring. In August he was let have two boatfuls of mackerel.
In November he was given five barrels of preserved mice. At other
seasons he had for his tribute one out of every hundred birds that flew
across the Island on their way to Ireland--tomtits, pee-wits, linnets,
siskins, starlings, martins, wrens and tender young barn owls. He was
also sent the following as marks of allegiance and respect: a salmon,
to show his dominion over the rivers; the skin of a marten to show his
dominion in the woods; a live cricket to show his dominion in the houses
of men; the horn of a cow, to show his right to a portion of the milk
produced in the Western World.

But the tribute from the Western World became smaller and smaller. One
year the boat did not come with the herring. Mackerel was sent to him
afterwards but he knew it was sent to him because so much was
being taken out of the sea that the farmer-men were plowing their
mackerel-catches into the land to make their crops grow. Then a