EDUCATION | PET OWNERSHIP
Why Black Cats Are Unlucky
When it comes to adoption rates
Black cats have long been viewed under a lens of suspicion and superstition, a negative connotation tied to the colour’s symbolic affiliation with death, grief and evil.
From the 13th to 17th centuries, in Early Christian European culture, black cats were mythologised as having strong associations with witchcraft. Old tales tell of black cats as witches’ supernatural familiars, or of witches themselves in feline form, and owning any cat — all the worse a black one — was incriminating evidence of a woman’s supposed involvement in the dark arts.
In the 12th Century, churches decreed that black cats were vessels for Satan and other demons, and Pope Gregory IX sanctioned the massacre of all cats — especially black ones — and the women who owned them. The result was the execution of witch and cat alike, sometimes by burning, other times by drowning.
While the extreme hatred for black cats dissipated across Europe in time, they were still viewed as unlucky; one common belief that has persisted since the 17th Century is the notion that having one’s path crossed by a black cat is sure to bring bad luck.
