Bell the Cat
April 5th 2025
The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) are filled with historical insights, including the story of this nickname “given to Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Angus, in the reign of James III of Scotland (1482)”.
David Hume told the tale first in The History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus (1644): “However, the Lord Gray heard all, and seeing their forwardnesse, craved audience, and told them the Apologue [fable] of the Mice… But when it came to be questioned who would undertake to tie the bell about the Cats neck, there was never a mouse durst [dared] cheep or undertake it. The Earle of Angus understood his meaning, and what application was to be made of it, wherefore he answered shortly, ‘I will Bell the Cat, and what your Lordships conclude to be done, shall not lack execution’. For this answer, he was alwayes after this named Archbald Bell the Cat”.
Archibald’s bravery has been remembered and widely referenced ever since, from Sir Walter Scott’s Marmion (1808), “And from a loop-hole while I peep, Old Bell-the-Cat came from the Keep”, to The Herald in November 2023: “Archie was nicknamed Bell-the-Cat, not for feline tintinnabulation but for being one of those chaps who, it says here, ‘takes the danger of a shared adventure upon oneself’. It’s from the fable by yon Aesop about one of a shoal of mice being brave enough to put a bell round the cat’s neck. Every day’s a school day”. It certainly is!
Dictionaries of the Scots Language would like to thank Bob Dewar for illustrating our Scots Word of the Week feature.
