The Fox and the Cat

The Fox and the Cat
The Adventures of Pinocchio characters
The Fox and the Cat, as drawn by Enrico Mazzanti
First appearance	The Adventures of Pinocchio
Created by	Carlo Collodi
Information
Species	Fox (The Fox) Cat (The Cat)
Gender	In Collodi's story, the Fox is male while the Cat is female. In every adaptation of the story, they are both portrayed as male characters.

The Fox and the Cat (Italian: Il gatto e la volpe, the names sequence is reversed as gatto means "cat" and volpe means "fox") are a pair of fictional characters who appear in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio). Both are depicted as con-men, who lead Pinocchio astray and unsuccessfully attempt to murder him. The pair pretend to sport disabilities; the Fox lameness and the Cat blindness. The Fox is depicted as the more intelligent of the two, with the Cat usually limiting itself to repeating the Fox's words.

Pinocchio encounters the two after leaving Mangiafuoco's theatre with five gold coins, whereupon the Fox claims to know Pinocchio's father Mister Geppetto and proposes to Pinocchio to visit the Land of Barn Owls (Paese dei Barbagianni) and thence to a 'Field of Miracles' (Il campo dei Miracoli), where coins can be grown into a money-producing tree. A white blackbird warns Pinocchio against these lies, but is eaten by the Cat. The Fox covered up this action by claiming that the blackbird talks too much. The pair lead Pinocchio to the Red Prawn Inn (Osteria del Gambero Rosso), where they eat a large meal and ask to be awoken at midnight.

Two hours before the set time, the pair abandon Pinocchio to pay for the meal with one of his coins and has the innkeeper leave a message for Pinocchio that the Cat's eldest kitten had fallen ill, and that they would meet Pinocchio at the Field of Miracles later. When Pinocchio leaves the inn, the two attack him in disguise of murderers, and in the ensuing struggle, Pinocchio bites off the Cat's paw. The murderers then hang Pinocchio from a tree, which he escapes with the assistance of The Fairy with Turquoise Hair who enlisted a falcon to cut him down.

The next day, Pinocchio encounters the pair again unaware that they are the murderers that hung him. When Pinocchio notices the Cat's missing paw, the Fox claims that the Cat lost a paw to feed a starving wolf. They lead Pinocchio to the town of Catchfools (Acchiappa Citrulli), where the coins are soon buried. In Pinocchio's absence, the pair dig up the coins and escape. Pinocchio learned of this from a parrot who mocked him for falling for their tricks.