Leigh Fermor (February 11, 1915 to June 10, 2011) was a British writer whose life combined adventure and scholarship. He also played an active military role in Crete behind the lines during World War II. His series of memoirs detail a life which includes studying the Mani, which was an isolated part of the geographical southern tip of Greece. It was not until 2007, if newspaper reports are to be believed, that Fermor (by then "Sir" Fermor) availed himself of modern technology in his writing--- he switched from longhand to typing on a typewriter.
His books include: A Time of Gifts (1977)
Roumeli (1966)
and the book we excerpt below:
Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958) --
I shall fill the leisure of our journey up the gulf with a digression on cats and divers kindred themes. Caiques often have pet cats on board and I have twice seen an important sailing held up — not that this takes much; anything suffices to postpone or expedite without warning the departure of these Bohemian barques — until the ship's cat was hunted up among the rubbish and fishbones on the quay. A story told me by my old friend Tanty Rodocanaki suggests that their presence is sometimes to be ascribed to more utilitarian reasons than pure cat-fancying. It seems that once upon a time a sea captain, distressed by the quantity of of rats that infested his caique, summoned a priest and asked him to perform the special service for casting them out. The appropriate chants were intoned and the priest censed and aspersed the ship from stem to stern. Pocketing the usual fee, he assured the captain that he would have no more trouble with vermin: the rite had never failed yet . "But there's just one point," he said. "What's that,Father." The priest stooped his bearded head to the seaman's ear and whispered: "Get a cat." Since then the phrase "getting a cat" means, in maritime circles, making surety doubly sure.
I shall fill the leisure of our journey up the gulf with a digression on cats and divers kindred themes. Caiques often have pet cats on board and I have twice seen an important sailing held up — not that this takes much; anything suffices to postpone or expedite without warning the departure of these Bohemian barques — until the ship's cat was hunted up among the rubbish and fishbones on the quay. A story told me by my old friend Tanty Rodocanaki suggests that their presence is sometimes to be ascribed to more utilitarian reasons than pure cat-fancying. It seems that once upon a time a sea captain, distressed by the quantity of of rats that infested his caique, summoned a priest and asked him to perform the special service for casting them out. The appropriate chants were intoned and the priest censed and aspersed the ship from stem to stern. Pocketing the usual fee, he assured the captain that he would have no more trouble with vermin: the rite had never failed yet . "But there's just one point," he said. "What's that,Father." The priest stooped his bearded head to the seaman's ear and whispered: "Get a cat." Since then the phrase "getting a cat" means, in maritime circles, making surety doubly sure.
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