It’s Friday and Halloween! I wouldn’t necessarily say that Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I don’t hate it. Who doesn’t like dressing up as someone else and eating candy until you get a bellyache? The one thing I don’t love about Halloween is my worry for my two beloved black cats. Every year, I hear about some asshat torturing a black cat, along with multiple warnings to keep my beloved cuddle bunnies inside. Loads of Halloween decorations feature black cats, likely because cats, and specifically black ones, are well-known familiars with witches. That got me thinking about where it all started, so, of course, I had to research that.

Dating back to Ancient Greece and Greek mythology, Zeus’s wife, Hera, transformed her servant, Galinthias, into a black cat as punishment for impeding the birth of Hercules. Additionally, Hecate, the goddess of magic, sorcery, the moon, and witchcraft, was described as having a cat as both a pet and a familiar.
The association between black cats and witchcraft was further entrenched on June 13, 1233, when an official church document, called “Vox in Rama,” was issued by Pope Gregory IX. And this is where the persecution of black cats solidified when the document declared that black cats were an incarnation of Satan. This fatal decree marked the beginning of the Inquisition and church-sanctioned witch hunts. Those witch hunts spread quickly throughout Europe. With the link between witches and cats firmly ingrained in the church teachings, it wasn’t too far off to link old women and cats to witchcraft. I suspect that is the origin of “crazy cat lady.” Eventually, this spread with the Puritans to the colonies.
During the Middle Ages, the practice of killing black cats emerged due to their association with evil. The poor things were attributed to all kinds of bizarre theories, such as blaming the spread of the Bubonic plague on cats, giving people ample reason to murder them. Ironically, the very practice of killing cats contributed to the spread of the plague because the diminishing cat population resulted in a lack of control over the rodent population, a major factor in the disease’s spread.
Many suspect that the origin of the crazy superstition attributing bad luck to when a black cat crosses one’s path dates back to the beliefs of the Middle Ages. It was thought that a black cat crossing your path might be on a mission from a witch, or that the cat was the devil in disguise, and who would want to cross paths with the devil?
The Renaissance saw a slight alteration to the link between black cats and bad luck, with the belief that when a black cat crosses your path, a witch has sent her familiar to do you harm. Because fearful peasants likely went to the church to pay for a blessing and rid themselves of this curse, some believe that the church reinforced those fears to bolster its income.
Fortunately, not all cultures link black cats to evil. In Egypt, black cats were revered due to their resemblance to the cat goddess Bastet. In other countries, such as Scotland or Japan, they represent prosperity.

Too bad I don’t believe in the power of black cats, or I would have sent my babies to place a curse on certain individuals in the Trump administration…kidding, not kidding. Anyhoo, I often incorporate cats and specifically black cats into my books. My recent novel, The Kitten Trap, features two adorable black kittens. And in my short story, Vampire Pussy Cat, that is free, by the way, available on this website, features a black kitten: https://annettemoriauthor.com/vampire-pussy-cat-download/ If you love cats, and black cats in particular, feel free to check out my stories by clicking the links below.