Kittens

A man recently said to me:
'Why are there no Kittens in Saxon literature?'
A fine question, though actually it was asked by a woman.
I changed the sex of the asker to make the question more credible.
Did it work?
I feel it did!

Well, as my profession is DETECTIVE I decided to find out a little about this confusing and yet somehow perplexing conundrum.
What I have discovered is this short entry on Wikipedia:

Kittens -
Invented in 1604 by Sir Alfred Kitten as an alternative to puppies. If a man were to ask for a dog for Christmas, a good hunting dog with an excellent nose and proud aspect, this dog would initially be in the form of a trial-dog, or puppy. This, of course, was to save space and food and to act as a dog 'cooling off' period in which the new owner could decide whether they could truly allocate the correct amount of time required in caring for a dog. After this short period you could then decide to upgrade the 'puppy' to a dog or you could bung him in the furnace.
Sir Alfred Kitten had noticed, however, that there was no cat alternative. His good lady-wife has asked for one (for Christmas) and he had been reluctant to get one. He had heard stories from all his good friends at the man-house that there were wont to shit everywhere and didn't give a toss about their supposed owners. This didn't seem like the type of animal he would want to have or that he would want his wife to have.
Of course, men being men, they were biased and stupid - particularly in the olden days, I mean, really, they were some thick idiots back then, eh? With this in mind he resolved to find a way in which to create a puppy-cat in order that he and his wife could find out for themselves whether this animal was right for them. It would be a cat, much smaller than you would normally see dragging a rat carcass around in the street, and it would have heightened fluffiness and cuteness, so as to make the shitting/arrogance more tolerable. If, by chance, the experiment amounted to nought, well he could always chuck it on the fire.
So he locked himself in his "silver jubilee" workshop with little but a hammer and a cup and a half of brandy and he set to work. Over the coming days and nights his wife was disturbed on no less than seventeen occaisions by the eerie noises coming from her husbands hideaway, but not once did she enter, for that, she knew, would incur her genius husband's wrath.
After many days of toil in his workshop Sir Alfred Kitten emerged with his cat-puppy. it was everything he had hoped for. Cute, small...the woiks. And in his pride he named it after himself...
The Kitten.

So you see, the reason Saxons never wrote about kittens was because they hadn't been invented yet....

Alright?

Laters potaters!

Sarlie-H