Grimalkin joined our family on September 23,
2006, at the tender age of six weeks. He was the largest of his litter and
very social - was giving me kisses within minutes of when we arrived at
his original owner's house. His mother was a calico and his father pure black -
Grimalkin is a grey tabby and he seemed to fit exactly the name Grimalkin
(or Greymalkin, as it's sometimes spelled). Read an explanation of the
name below from
Wikipedia.
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Grimalkin with Jay, 09-23-06

Click on photo for larger
view |
Grimalkin was the name of the witches' cat in
Macbeth
by
William Shakespeare. Grimalkin is also Heathcliffe's cat in
Wuthering Heights - read here:
"Nothing was stirring
except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted
me with a querulous mew. Two benches, shaped in sections of a
circle, nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of these I stretched
myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other. "
A
grimalkin is defined as an old or evil-looking she-cat. The term stems
from gray (the color) plus malkin, an archaic word for cat. Scottish
legend makes reference to the grimalkin as a faery cat which dwells in the
highlands. During the Middle ages, the name grimalkin - and cats in general - became
associated with the devil and witchcraft. Women tried as witches in the
16th, 17th and 18th centuries were often accused of having a
familiar, frequently a grimalkin.
The name has been re-used for various other things including a racing
yacht which was a casualty in the
1979 Fastnet race storm. |