This article is part of a series about five different Arthurian legends that have some connection to the production of Spamalot. The piece of folklore deals with the terrible Cath Palug in the poem “Pa gur yv y porthaur?” (or Pa Gur for short) which means “Who is the Gatekeeper?” It is a poem from the Black Book of Carmarthen, allegedly written by a single scribe in the 11th century. This book of poetry is considered to be one of the oldest surviving manuscripts in the Welsh language (Center for Arthurian Studies).
The actual Black Book of Carmarthen is a series of Welsh poems bound into 108 pages that is incomplete and has several missing verses and pages. Therefore, parts of this story will naturally have parts missing. Another notable feature of this compilation of poetry is the inconsistency of the scribe’s handwriting and change of character sizing (National Library of Wales).
Regardless of the wacky handwriting, Par Gur begins when King Arthur and the knight Cai are passing through and then asks a gatekeeper who their name is and they reply by stating that they are Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr. King Arthur boasts about the triumphs of his crew and mentions all of the battles won by one of his knights, Sir Cai. One such story concerns Cai when he travels to Anglesey with 180 soldiers where they easily fight off nine witches.
Arthur then mentions the terrible cat of Palug or Cath Palug, who manages to turn Cai’s men into cat food. Cai manages to defeat the dreadful Cath Palug, however, Par Gur is a fragmented poem so there is no conclusion to how Cai kills the beast.
“Cai pierced nine witches.
His shield was ready
Against Oath Palug
When the people welcomed him.
Who pierced the Cath Palug?
Nine scores before dawn
Would fall for its food.”
-“Par Gur”: Poem 31 of the Black Book of Carmarthen
In Spamalot, one connection between the terrible Welsh cat and our production is the Bunny of Caerbannog, the evil and killer rabbit that the mystical Tim warns Arthur and his crew about. The Bunny’s body count (1) is not merely as impressive as Cath Palug's (180), but is still a ferocious creature that is a worthy adversary. In some legends, King Arthur kills Cath Palug instead of Cai or is even killed by the feline fiend. However, one amusing final note is the term ‘cath’ meaning cat, there is a term for a lion in old Welsh (llew) but the scribe of Par Gur specifically uses the term ‘cat.’ This can naturally conclude that Cath Palug is merely an army-killing house cat.