Lu You, a poet of the Southern Song dynasty, wrote of a ritual in which people gave the then-valuable commodity of salt to the procurer when taking a cat into their homes.
也因此向人乞貓入門是家中相當慎重的大事。南宋詩人陸游有詩為證，「裹鹽迎得小狸奴」指的就是用鹽巴為聘禮，風光迎貓入門的習俗。