Black Cats have been considered unlucky for at least eight centuries. Europeans in the Middle Ages associated black cats with the devil. Pope Gregory IX claimed the black cat was an incarnation of Satan in 1232. Many cats were killed during the Black Death. This scapegoating is likely to have worsened the plague if the disease carrying fleas were, as is thought, often carried by rats.
By the sixteenth century, cats (and black cats in particular) became associated with witchcraft. The belief that witches could turn themselves into black cats was carried across the Atlantic and cited during the Salem Witch Trials.
In Scottish folklore, Cat Sith was a fairy who appeared as a black cat with a white spot on its chest and was said to steal the soul of the departed before it could be claimed by the gods, simply by passing over a corpse. The black cat’s association with Halloween/Samhain might originate from the myth of Cat Sith. Leaving a saucer of milk outside your door on October 31st was claimed to prevent the fairy from cursing your home and cattle.
In Norse legend, Freya’s chariot was pulled by two black cats who were turned back into witches after seven years of faithful service. And in Greece, Hecate was said to have a black cat as her familiar.
Although cats are usually welcomed on ships to control the mouse population, if a black cat walks onto a ship and leaves, the vessel is supposedly doomed to sink when it next sails.
The idea that a black cat crossing your path signified bad luck was utilised by American saboteurs in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It was this tradition which led to the adoption of the arched-back black cat as a symbol for the labour movement.
Even now, in our more secular times, black cats are only half as likely to be accepted into Western households than other cats. So, in celebration of black cats everywhere, the lovely Image I shared with at the start of this post is our beloved companion, Mystic.
Horror and Paranormal authors participating in this year's October Frights -
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