Lafcadio Hearn

“The Boy Who Drew Cats” is a tale by Lafcadio Hearn, published in 1898 as number 23 in Hasegawa Takejirō’s Japanese Fairy Tale Series. It tells the story of a Japanese boy, the youngest in a farming family, who is sent to a temple to be trained as a priest. Despite his intelligence, he has an irresistible obsession: drawing cats everywhere. His master expels him from the temple with a cryptic warning: “Avoid large places at night;—keep to small!” Without fully understanding these words, the boy sets out on a journey to another temple in search of a new opportunity.