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Cheshire Cat info...from Excite Search...Source: Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. "The phrase has never been satisfactorily explained, but it has been said that Cheshire cheese was once sold moulded like a cat that appeared to be grinning. The waggish explanation is that the cats know that Cheshire is a county palatine (properly the dominion of an earl palatine over which he had quasi-royal jurisdiction) and find the idea a source of amusement".

This etymology is seconded in Dictionary of Word Origins, Jordan Almond: he says the phrase is from Ireland, where cheeses once sold in Cheshire County were molded to look like cats, and the cats had very broad grins.