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Belling the cat
''Belling the Cat'' is a fable also known under the titles ''The Bell and the Cat'' and ''The Mice in Council''. Although often attributed to Aesop, it was not recorded before the Middle Ages and has been confused with the quite different fable of Classical origin titled The Cat and the Mice. In the classificatory system established for the fables by B. E. Perry, it is numbered 613, which is reserved for Mediaeval attributions outside the Aesopic canon.
== Synopsis and idiomatic use ==
The fable concerns a group of mice who debate plans to nullify the threat of a marauding cat. One of them proposes placing a bell around its neck, so that they are warned of its approach. The plan is applauded by the others, until one mouse asks who will volunteer to place the bell on the cat. All of them make excuses. The story is used to teach the wisdom of evaluating a plan not only on how desirable the outcome would be, but also on how it can be executed. It provides a moral lesson about the fundamental difference between ideas and their feasibility, and how this affects the value of a given plan.
The story gives rise to the idiom ''to bell the cat'', which means to attempt, or agree to perform, an impossibly difficult task.〔("To Bell the Cat" ) thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 9 November 2007.〕 Historically it was the basis of the nickname given the Scottish nobleman, Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus. In 1482, at a meeting of nobles who wanted to depose and hang James III's favourite, Robert Cochrane, Lord Gray remarked, ''Tis well said, but wha daur bell the cat?'' The challenge was accepted and successfully accomplished by the Earl of Angus. In recognition of this, he was always known afterwards as Archie Bell-the-cat.〔Alexander Hislop: ''The proverbs of Scotland'', Edinburgh 1868, p. 314, (available at Google Books )〕
The first English collection to attribute the fable to Aesop was Francis Barlow's of 1687; in this there is a fine woodcut, followed by a 10-line verse synopsis by Aphra Behn with the punning conclusion
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