De muribus tintinnabulum feli appendere volentibus
Every morning there is a new problem and some evenings there are solutions – one need to think and find way out of problems rather than be bogged down and the solutions needs to be practical and implementable.
Long long ago, in trying to escape from the killer cats and be alive – the Mice Council decided to put a bell on a cat's neck to alert them of its presence. While everyone appreciated it as a grand idea – they were unable to find a mouse brave and capabale enough to actually attach the bell to the cat.
One of the earliest versions of the story appears as a parable critical of the clergy in Odo of Cheriton's Parabolae. It was written around 1200, and later translated into Welsh, French and Spanish. Odo of Cheriton was an English preacher and fabulist who spent a considerable time studying in Paris and then lecturing in the south of France and in northern Spain. In the following century, the Italian author Laurentius Abstemius made of the fable a Latin cautionary tale titled De muribus tintinnabulum feli appendere volentibus (The mice who wanted to bell the cat) in 1499. A more popular version in Latin verse was written by Gabriele Faerno and printed posthumously in his Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae (100 delightful fables from ancient authors, Rome 1564).
The phrase "who will bell the cat?" is an idiom that asks who will be brave enough to undertake a risky or dangerous task, often one that others are unwilling to do. It originates from a fable about mice who want to put a bell on a cat's neck to warn them of its approach, but no one is willing to actually do it.
The problems are not complex always – as proved here – a belled cat
Regards – S Sampathkumar
3.4.2025
