The Kilkenny Cats

I would feel obliged if any of your correspondents could give me information as to the first, or any early, published allusion to the strange tale, modernly become proverbial, of the ferocity of the cats of Kilkenny. The story generally told is, that two of those animals fought in a sawpit with such ferocious determination that when the battle was over nothing could be found remaining of either combatant except *his tail*, —the marvellous inference to be drawn therefrom being, of course, that they had devoured each other. This ludicrous anecdote has, no doubt, been generally looked upon as an…