The fool....

I'm beginning work on my own deck at the moment, synthesising meanings, working out symbolism and sketching out and such forth, and one question has sprung immediately to mind:

Why does the Fool have a cat?

a few ideas have come to me:
*Cats don't represent new beginnings, as far as I can see, so it could be symbolic of carrying something of your past with you...

*If the Fool is indeed the Magician, or even a magician, then the cat could be his familiar...

*The cat is a foolish companion, as it has no loyalty, as opposed to a dog...but then some decks have show a dog instead...

hmmm can´t give you a straight answer on why the fool has a cat - but I have some ideas, maybe a brainstorm can help you a bit further........

A cat: can see through darkness, hunts by night, independent, stubbern, selfish, lazy, always lands on its feet, playfull, seems carefree/reckless, can survive on its own, a loner by choice, strong, hypnotic, clean, unpredictable....

I believe it was the egyptians ( especially the nobles and rich ppl) who were barried with all their possesings including a cat, which was barried alive with them in order to guide and protect them through darkness.

That´s all I have ..... maybe you´ll find your answer in it somewhere

Most decks have a dog rather than a cat following the Fool. The idea there is that the dog is either:

1) Trying to warn the Fool that he's about to fall off a cliff. He's barking, trying to hustle the Fool away from disastor. In this, the Dog stands for a something closer to the ground, more observant, instincts that ought to be trusted.

2) Being a dog nipping, bitting, barking and harrying the Fool. Maybe even pulling off his pants. If the Dog is doing this, then he's emblematic of how foolish the Fool is. Even dogs mock him.

I assume you're talking Marseille, in which case remember that this is a deck that involves some old European and Christianized symbolism. Cats in this case, are chaos, the devil. The Fool is a victim of such things, in danger from them, like an unbaptized baby.

Thankyou very much for both your answers, You've already given me answers that I was never going to think of...
I'll have to work some of those in now...

Just to add, I think I read somewhere that cats were taken on board ships not just to catch mice, but because they were seen as untamed (untameable?) like the ocean. It was like-vs.-like magic. A dog was order, a cat was chaos. The sea was chaos, so take a cat and the ocean won't bother you.

We have to remember that in Europe, especially back in the Middle Ages, cats were seen as scary and supernatural. They seemed to stare at nothing--which people took to mean that they could see the unseeable, like ghosts. They seemed able to vanish and reappear out of nowhere, often from above (tree branches and rooftops), their eyes glowing in the dark demonically. They had fangs and sharp claws, were wild, beastial, not friendly and obedient like dogs. Apt for Halloween, they're still pictured as witches' familiars.

I see the animal (in my case a dog but a cat would make as much sense in this explanation) as a reresentation of the Fools animal instincts/desires. The animal is driving him forward, making him do the things he does without thinking. It represents the way our deeper drives - for food, warmth, shelter, sex, etc - make us do things as if they were an outside force and not something we can control.

However I see the Fool as both the beginning and the end of the Tarot path. The above represents the Fool at the start of the journey. At the end the Fool is allowing his animal instincts to lead him on as he has harnessed and understood them. Here the animal is warning him of the dangers ahead.

As with a lot of things to do with the Tarot whether you see the Fool as being at the beginning or end of his journey is an intuitive thing based on where it crops up.

Thirteen: Good points about the cat associations. Cats have long been associated with magick & supersition. A black cat crossing one's path was considered a "bad" omen, probably due to its association with "witches". A cat having nine lives may refer to a cat's ability to extricate itself out of difficulty or danger quickly where other creatures would fall victim.
Joe: On target insight & understanding.
& welcome to the forums, too

It doen't make any difference if the deck you are using shows a dog, or a cat,
they are present simply to tell us...Our personality comes along as our faithful companion.

Oops- goofed

Is it at all possible that the critter is there for no other reason than some Italian renaissance artist’s propensity to use artistic license? It could well be mo more than a picture of the patron who was paying for the deck’s favorite pet! Maybe the artist was sneaking in a little commentary on the patron; calling him a fool in a way that he could get away with. They loved to do that. In other words, why can’t the little beast be just pure ornamentation? On my own deck, my fool is carry8ing a chicken; and that's only because I liked the clipart. I’m new to Tarot; am I missing something important here?