A Booty History

The character of Puss in Boots was not a completely original one and like much of the Shrek series was based upon an old fairy tale or rather a European folktale by Charles Perralt in his Mother Goose Tales collection. The original tale was thought to appear as early as 1634.


The following summary of the story is taken from wikipedia.org.


In Charles Perrault's version of the story, the division of property after a simple miller's death leaves his youngest son with nothing but the granary cat. The cat, however, turns out to be intelligent and resourceful, and (in return for a new pair of boots), catches a rabbit which he presents to the king:


"I bring you, Sire," said he, "a rabbit from the warren of the Marquis de Carabas" for so Puss had named the miller's youngest son. With the gift of a brace of partridges and other small game, always from the Marquis de Carabas, Puss-in-Boots was soon in a position to know when the king and his beautiful daughter would be travelling by the river road.


"If you will do as I tell you," said Puss to his master, "your fortune is made. You have only to go and bathe in the river at the spot which I shall point out to you. Leave the rest to me."


Thus ensued the famous moment, the turn in the fable, when Puss cries out "Help! help! the Marquis de Carabas is drowning!" Thus the miller's son, stark naked, is wrapped in royal robes and sets off in the king's own coach, and the fable unfolds with Perrault's characteristic aplomb and droll wit.


There is a well-known scene in the story in which the cat destroyed an ogre (in order to obtain the ogre's castle as a home for the newly-made Marquis) by convincing the ogre to transform himself into a mouse, which the cat then ate. In the end the marquis got the princess, and "Puss became a personage of great importance, and gave up hunting mice, except for amusement."


The Puss in Boots we know and love today is very loosely based upon this medieval creation. His choice as Shreks assassin becomes obvious after refering to the scene in which Puss defeats an ogre through wit and takes his castle. Shrek however is not defeated by Puss (maybe because he did not use his cunniving tricks of folklore) and he becomes a new friend rather than his death. A notable difference to the two characters is the change in nationality changing from the suave French intellectual to the deadly yet still suave Spanish assassin.


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