Ursula Moray Williams is the author of over 70 children’s novels. Among them, one called Gobbolino, The Witch’s Cat is particularly well known and was published in 1942 with a charming set of illustrations drawn by Williams herself. There have been other editions, including a 70th-anniversary edition, with illustrations by Catherine Rayner.
Gobbolino is a little black kitten, who was born in a witch’s cave but has a couple of problems: instead of being completely black, he has a white paw; instead of having yellow eyes, he has big blue eyes; instead of wishing to be a witch’s cat, he wishes to be a house cat. His attempts are botched by envious cats or other misfortunes.
Ursula Moray Williams also wrote a short story called “A Carol for Gobbolino”, which was also included in the Story Teller magazine.
In this story, Gobbolino joins the children of the farmhouse for some carolling, but they are ambushed by some cats living in an abandoned building.
He saves the children and helps them run away and, eventually, he finds shelter in a church when people are reenacting the Nativity scene. The evil cats try and call him out as a witch’s cat, as they usually do, but people in the church finally pay no attention to them.
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