While Vikings don’t exactly have a reputation for being cuddly, their travel companions do. Hoping to shed some light on the early history of cats, in 2016 researchers reported the results of a study in which they sequenced the DNA of 209 felines, the remains of which had been found at various archaeological sites, dating from 15,000 to 2,700 years ago. What they discovered was that cats expanded geographically in two waves.

During the first wave, the feline critters traveled from the Middle East to the eastern Mediterranean, an area known for its fertile lands. This finding supports the long-held belief that farmers—in desperate need of rodent control—encouraged the spread of cats. The next wave—which occurred thousands of years later—started in ancient Egypt, where cats were worshipped, and moved to Africa and Eurasia via seafarers. Researchers notably found that the DNA from an Egyptian cat matched that of a feline found at a Viking site in Germany. It is believed that Vikings—along with other mariners—took cats on ships in order to control rats and mice. These findings are not surprising, given the presence of cats in Norse mythology. The goddess Freyja—who was in charge of love, fertility, battle, and death—traveled in a chariot pulled by two large cats. (Source: britannica.com)

I can say without a doubt that at least until the 1930s, cats had their place aboard ship as the "welcoming committee" for any uninvited rodent. My dad was a career seaman who began at age 15 in the mid 30s to sail around the world, on ships with flags flying under many nations (As a Swede, he was considered "neutral" so could sail for any shipping company willing to hire him). Some of these ships were kind of primitive. Times being what they were, with few regulations, he started on sailing ships rigged with fore-and-aft sails to jumbo cargo freighters that could be landed upon by jets or carry several tons of cargo in its hold or on deck. He told me it was not unheard of for cats to be recruited to sail with the crew to keep the rodent population down. Sometimes it was the captain's pet cat who filled the vacancy. One captain, my dad told me, brought along his pet monkey, which my dad, a first mate then, was obliged to give a bath to the monkey once a week. Oh, how he hated that monkey! But that's another story...

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