350. _his_, its. The pronoun is here neuter, and is the same in all the
MSS. Tyrwhitt altered it to _hire_ (her), but needlessly. But in l. 352,
the sex of the cat is defined. As to the singed cat, 'that, as they say,
does not like to roam,' see The Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, ed. Crane,
(Folk Lore Soc.), 1890, pp. 219, 241.
354. _goon a-caterwawed_, go a-caterwauling. I explain the suffix _-ed_ as
put for _-eth_, A. S. _-að_, as in _on huntað_, a-hunting; where _-að_ is a
substantival suffix. I have given several examples of this curious
substitution in the note to C. 406, q. v. Cotgrave has: '_Aller à gars_, to
hunt after lads; (a wench) to go a caterwawling.' And see _Caterwaul_ in
the New Eng. Dict.