Norse Mythology & Life 3 Old Norse Mytholog
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CATSCat design on bronze tortiose-shell brooch, Jutland 
The Vikings kept cats for their valuable skills as mousers as well as keeping cats for pets. Kittens were sometimes given to new brides as an essential part of setting up a new household. It is especially appropriate that brides should receive cats, since cats were associated with Freyja, the goddess of love. The Vikings believed that Freyja rode a cart drawn by a team of cats. It might seem absurd to imagine a cart drawn by cats, until one realizes that Viking cats were not your standard Felis domesticus -- they were the Skogkatt (Norwegian, meaning literally "Forest Cat"), a wild breed native to the North. In Denmark, these cats are called Huldrekat (huldre are female forest spirits, literally, "the hidden folk"). The Skogkatt is a large breed, known for their strong bones and muscular forms.
Modern illustrations depicting Freyja in her Cat-Drawn Chariot "When Freyja goes on a journey, she sits in a chariot drawn by two cats." -- Gylfaginning The ancestors of the Skogkatt probably were Southern European shorthaired cats which came to Norway from other parts of Europe in prehistoric times. Due to the natural selection imposed by the strange and hostile climatic conditions, only individuals with a particularly thick coat and other adaptations to a cold climate survived. The Norwegian Forest Cat, also called Skogkatt, Huldrekatt, or, less formally, the Weegie-Cat T    he earliest literary descriptions suspected to be the Norwegian Forest Cat come from the Norse myths, describing the large, strong cats that drew Freyja's chariot or the cat so heavy that not even Thorr, God of Thunder, could lift it from the floor: Owners of Forest Cats will readily recognize their large-boned, powerful cats in these tales. The first literary description that unmistakably describes the Forest Cat is from the Danish clergyman, Peter Clausson Friis, who lived the greater part of his life in Norway. In 1559 Friis described three types of "lynx": the wolf lynx, the fox lynx, and the cat lynx.
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Pans Truls  ans Truls, the original Forest Cat breed standard, shows many lynx-like features. It is believed that the animal which Peter Clausson Friis called the "cat lynx" was in fact the Norwegian Forest Cat, a theory made more likely by the many similarities in general appearance between the Forest Cat and the Norwegian lynx. The most apparent of these is that they are both big, long-legged cats with large ruffs, and tufts at the tips of their ears. Moreover they both like water, and the stories of swimming Forest Cats who catch their own fish in lakes and rivers are innumerable. The Forest Cat evidently utilizes the same methods as the Norwegian lynx when it goes fishing.
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