We are not likely to discover for certain the cradle of the race of the Master-Cat--the 'cat's cradle' of _Puss in Boots_. But the record of his achievements is so well worth studying, because the possible area from which it may have arisen is comparatively limited. There are many stories known all the world over, such as the major part of the adventures of _Hop o' My Thumb_, which might have been invented anywhere, and might have been invented by men in a low state of savagery. The central idea in _Hop o' My Thumb_, for example, is the conception of a hero who falls into the hands of cannibals, and by a trick makes the cannibal slay, and sometimes eat, his own kinsfolk, mother, or wife, or child, while the hero escapes. This legend is well known in South Africa, in South Siberia, and in Aberdeenshire; and in Greece it made part of the Minyan legend of Athamas and Ino, murder being substituted for cannibalism. Namaquas, in Southern Africa; Eskimo, in Northern America, and Athenians (as Aeschylus shows in the _Eumenides_, 244), are as familiar as Maoris, or any of us, with the ogre's favourite remark, 'I smell the smell of a mortal man.' Now it is obvious that these ideas--the trick played by the hero on the cannibal, and the turning of the tables--might occur to the human mind wherever cannibalism was a customary peril: that is, among any low savages. It does not matter whether the cannibal is called a _rakshasa_ in India, or an _ogre_ in France, or a _weendigo_ in Labrador, the notion is the same, and the trick played by the hero is simple and obvious[55]. Therefore _Hop o' My Thumb_ may have been invented anywhere, by any people on a low level of civilisation. But _Puss in Boots_ cannot have been invented by savages of a very backward race or in a really 'primitive' age. The very essence of _Puss in Boots_ is the sudden rise of a man, by aid of a cunning animal, from the depths of poverty to the summit of wealth and rank. Undeniably this rise could only occur where there were great differences of social status, where rank was a recognised institution, and where property had been amassed in considerable quantities by some, while others went bare as lackalls. These things have been of the very essence of civilisation (the more's the pity), therefore _Puss in Boots_ must have been invented by a more or less civilised mind; it could not have been invented by a man in the condition of the Fuegians or the Digger Indians. Nay, when we consider the stress always and everywhere laid in the story on snobbish pride and on magnificence of attire and equipment, and on retinue, we may conclude that _Puss in Boots_ could hardly have been imagined by men in the middle barbarism; in the state, for example, of Iroquois, or Zulus, or Maoris. Nor are we aware that _Puss in Boots_, in any shape, is found among any of these peoples. Thus the area in which the origin of _Puss in Boots_ has to be looked for is comparatively narrow.