OK this makes it two Lovecraft stories in a row which are supposedly horror but which I read with great pleasure as a justified and wholly appreciated result. Hmmm. I’m not sure this says good things about my morals …
In The Cats of Ulthar we are hearing a tale about a ‘nearby town’ Ulthar, as told by a cat lover. Apparently currently in Ulthar it is illegal to kill any cats. But, it’s explained, it wasn’t always this way. Clearly something happened to change this.
And that something is an old cotter and his wife who are apparently PURE EVIL. If any of the neighbors’ cats get into the cotters’ yard, the cotter and his wife torture the cats to death. How are the villagers of Ulthar not gathering up torches and pitchforks and immediately stopping this??? Instead the villagers are AFRAID of this old guy and his wife, for no reason we can tell? I would not be afraid. I’d be gathering up friends and putting a stop to this immediately.
Well, along comes a group of “dark” folk, because this is a Lovecraft story. Among the folk is an orphan boy with a cute little black kitten. That black kitten is the only spark of joy in the boy’s life. And of course we know what happens next. The kitten goes missing. The villagers all TELL this sobbing little boy that the kitten was probably tortured and slain by the cotter couple?!? What?!? Just what kind of villagers are these?
The boy says a calm prayer and then all the travelers leave. That very night ALL the cats of Ulthar vanish. Some blame the travelers. But the saner ones (?) in this village blame the cotter couple. None of course want to go anywhere near the hovel to find out. It’s too dark. They decide to go to sleep instead. With their cat missing? If my cats were missing I’d be out all night trying to find them …
Morning comes and the cats are back home. So nobody goes to confront the cotters? Everyone just pretends nothing had happened? Oh, and the cats are plump and happy. And not hungry. And it is TWO WEEKS until the village leader decides to go check on the mysteriously missing cotter and his wife.
The two are, of course, skeletons.
Is there really enough meat on two humans to fill up an entire town of cats? Maybe it was magical meat.
In any case, after that the townsfolk decided that harming a cat was a bad idea and they passed a law forbidding it. Which makes it sound as if they were more afraid for their own skins than doing it out of love for the cats. The main threat was gone, after all. And maybe the villagers should have vowed to be more active in protecting their pets.
In any case, though, I was all in favor of getting rid of the cat-torturers. And why did they have to wait for the cats to take action, when tiny black kittens were being tortured?
The villagers don’t deserve those cats.
Here’s the story –
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cu.aspx
Here’s my video review –