It’s Black Cat Appreciation Day! Time to celebrate this often feared feline. Black Cat Appreciation Day was created by Wayne H. Morris to honor of his late sister, June, who had a black cat named Sinbad. The day was chosen to commemorate her passing. Why do some people fear the black cat? Well, we can probably thank the Pilgrims for bringing their beliefs of bad omens with them when they landed on Plymouth Rock but that’s another story.
Black cats have gotten a bit of a bad rap for being unlucky and foreboding here in the west, but they are celebrated as good luck harbingers in many cultures.
- Ancient Egyptians celebrated the goddess Bast who was believed to have taken the form of a black cat.
- Scottish lore says good luck will come your way if a black cat shows up at your door?
- In Celtic mythology, black cats are prominently featured as good luck and represented by the fairy cat, Sith.
- In seafaring cultures black cats are prominent too as fishermen kept them aboard their boats, believing them to bring a big catch and safe travels.
- England’s Charles l even got in on the action when he claimed the death of his black cat indicated his luck had run out and what do you know, the next day he was arrested for high treason.
Black cats have had some representation in pop culture here in the states. We all know Felix the Cat, who made his debut in the 1919 cartoon Feline Follies and the loveable Binx from the Halloween favorite “Hocus Pocus”,
and last but not least, Salem, the favorite familiar of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch”.
So on this Black Cat Appreciation Day let’s do just that! Appreciate. Beautiful black cats are about half as likely to be adopted as their colorful counterparts, which is sad because it’s been said many owners find them more empathic and instinctive than other breeds. So if you’ve been thinking about inviting a new feline friend into your life, today is the day!
However, if you’re like me and severely allergic we can celebrate by checking out Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” a short story originally published in 1845 and one of his darkest tales.
SOURCE CITATIONS
Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David (2005-10-27). “Cat o’Nine Tales”. Snopes.com
Hackett, Stacy N. (2015-08-17). “Black Cat Breeds and History”. CatChannel.com.
Boks, Ed 6/10/2010. The truth about black cats and Halloween. The Daily Courier. Prescott, Arizona./
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