Everyone is familiar with the phrase "grin like a Cheshire cat", which means of course to put on a sardonic face. Many explanations of its origin have been attempted. One is that in Chesire cheese were sold in thee shape of the grinning head of a cat. Another, that Chesire is a Palatine country of earldom and that this mark of nobility provoked the hilarity of its cats. Still another is that in the time of Richard III there was a gamewarden named Caterling who used to break into an angry smile whenever he crossed swords with poachers.
In Alice in Wonderland published in 1865, Lews Carroll endowed the Chesire Cat with the faculty of slowly disappearing to the point of leaving only its grin - without teeth and without a mouth. Of the Kilkenny Cats it is told that they got into raging quarrels and devoured each other, leaving behind no more than their tails. This story goes back to the eighteenth century.
Jorge Luis Borges The book of imaginary beings.
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