12th-century English paw prints send the online cat community on a funny field trip: 'Paws that launched a thousand "aww"s'

Ayala Sorotsky • Writer and Editor

Nov 7, 2025 1:00 PM EST

I, Sir Fluffington the Fearless, royal mouser and occasional bread-kneader of the 12th century, have a confession: I left my paws on the stones of St. Peter's Church, Wormleighton. Not just metaphorically. Literally. Furrever.

The humans were carving big fancy rocks for their very serious church project - chisel here, hammer there, "architecture" and "holy purpose" blah blah. Naturally, they needed a highly skilled supervisor. Enter me. Tail high, whiskers immaculate, I sashayed across those freshly set stones with the confidence of a cat who knows they own the entire kingdom… and at least 60% of the cheese.

Did I see the mason's face scrunch in horror when he spotted my pawprints? Yes. Did I stop? No. I made eye contact and pressed a second paw down, just to assert dominance. If you don't leave your mark in history, are you even a cat?

Centuries later, humans assume I was "just investigating", "being naughty", or "seeking attention". Wrong. I was creating art. I was signing the floor like a medieval Picasso. My meowgnificent masterpiece.

Now people travel from all over to admire my tiny toe beans immortalized in stone. And I can only imagine the mason still muttering in the afterlife: "This blasted cat ruined my tiles!" Sorry, Geoffrey. The paws decide their own destiny.

So yes, dear humans: cats have been interrupting important projects, walking on wet surfaces, and claiming property since the dawn of time. You may build the monuments… but we will leave the paw prints.

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Cats be cats in any point in time. Probably any point in space, too, in the distant future where cats rule the galaxy and probably the rest of the universe as well. Cats just be catting.
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We laughed at this comment so much, imagining the chonkiness is hilarious. But further down, there's an explanation for this from people who actually know a thing or two about the materials that have been in use at that time.
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