I've abandoned the idea of writing about my impromptu blog topics without the luxury of research. True, if I were in front of all of you and were given a topic, I'd have no time to do background research, but alas, this is the Internet and all things are possible. So beginning with the Cheshire cat, I am going to write informed essays. I enjoy doing the research, and hopefully you will enjoy reading what I am able to find out about the topics at hand.

The Cheshire Cat

On a recent spring evening, Bugs and I were leaving a friend's place when I glanced up at the moon. "Look at the moon," I said. "It reminds me of the grin of the Cheshire cat."

Although I am an avid cat lover, I hadn't thought of the Cheshire cat in a long time until the moon reminded me. The cat, of course, was made infamous by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Not the kindest of creatures, he sported rather long claws and lots of sharp teeth. He proclaimed himself and all others in the Wonderland-- including Alice-- to be mad ("you must be or you wouldn't have come here").

He was also hard to get directions out of:
`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
`I don't much care where--' said Alice.
`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
`--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

His trademark, of course, was the fact that he could disappear. When Alice admonished him for scaring her by vanishing and reappearing quickly, he instead disappeared very slowly, starting with his tail and working up to his whiskered face, eventually leaving nothing but his grin.

But where did this character come from? One can only speculate. Carroll was a native of Cheshire, a county in NW England, an area famous for its cheeses. According to the Web site of the British Cheese Board, it has been suggested that the cat and his grin originate from a grinning cat-like gargoyle on a Cheshire church or the business-like grin on the faces of the prostitutes of 19th-century Cheshire. I like their third suggestion even better: apparently, Cheshire cheese used to be made in the shape of a cat and was eaten from the tail up, eventually leaving nothing but the cat's head. Based on my own love of cheese, I can tell you that the cheese kitty would disappear quite quickly were he to grace my table.

The phrase "grinning like a Cheshire cat" was popularized by Carroll's characterization of the Cheshire cat, but it is important to note that he did not create the phrase. Once again, it is speculated that the grinning cat mold once used for Cheshire cheese prompted the now-popular phrase.

Or, you could go in an entirely different direction and side with a Cheshire writer and archaeologist who says that the 'Cheshire Grin' was a term once used to refer to death by cutting the throat from ear to ear or by hanging. I was skeptical at first, but when you look at the section in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that deals with the king ordering his executioner to behead the Cheshire cat, there might actually be some merit in the theory. The cat, of course, throws them all for a loop when he leaves only his head visible for everyone to see. The executioner argues that he can't cut off a head without a body to cut it off from, and the cat eventually disappears completely and no more mention of him is made in the story.

There you have it. Now you know more than you probably ever wished to learn about the Cheshire cat. So the next time you see the moon and it looks like the grin of a Cheshire cat, you'll be reminded of gargoyles, prostitutes, cheese, and even hangings and beheadings. You're welcome.