The Real Origins of Black Cat Superstitions

I always worry about us having the same story. That's part of the surprise. It is part of the surprises that one day we might and then I don't know, maybe the show explodes or something, or uh, it's over. Like it's like we've done it, there's nothing left. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the internet. I'm Edwin and I'm Michelle for this one is super basic. Like I have a story about black cats. Ooh, I love black Cat. That was my childhood pet before Robert. I've only had two pets. Really, yeah, and then sometimes I still pretend Robert is kitty. You know that we say, are you a cat person or a dog person? Like if there were, I think it's birds. Isn't it like a bird? Yeah? What those people are freaks. I love cats. I love them. I'm allergic. I mean I was allergic to cats too, and I still had Kittie. So anyway, let's talk about black cats. I came across this article on psychology today. It was like a whole study on why black cats aren't adopted as often. They looked at all the you know, the info, all the data and everything. They came up with three top reasons. They're kind of dumb wait cats, like like like why white people don't adopt black cats, which is it doesn't make any sense right. The top reason said that people think they are less friendly and more aggressive than other cats. Number two that people are superstitious, so they tie them to the devil, evil, bad luck, fair. But also what's the harm in that. Number three is that people saying that they cannot read their emotions, like the emotions of black cats. You can read the emotions of normal cat. I guess you can. I didn't know you could. But even dumber than that is that they say that they're not photogentic. You have to know how to light them. It's all about the reflections when you're shooting something like a black car or a black cat. You know, otherwise it's just a black voice. And people just don't like that. I guess I think they look cool. Honestly, they look very shiny. I just consider it shiny animals, Like they're just shiny. I don't know. They kind of like little panthers that live in your house, and their eyes they just stand out from the rest of their all of them like all of their body. Yeah, the power was out once in my childhood home, and I felt something watching me, and I had to get my cell phone that had been plugged in somewhere in the living room. It wasn't in my bedroom at the time, so I was going to get my phone, and I just felt this and it's like somebody's watching me as I crept along the wall because the powers out. And then I got my phone, I turned on the flashlight and my black cat was sitting directly across from me in the recliner, just staring at the dark, being creep So I started looking up all this stuff, and I was going through all the material that then I have of like stories with black cats, and I found this one. Michelle was a friendly neighbor, one of the nice ones in her community. Are we like modern times or like what let's go to like the nineties? I guess, okay, all right, After all the many years living in the same street, nobody had called the cops on her. That's how you know you're a good neighbor. She would walk up and down the street quite often. She would always do the same wall to the bakery, then to the marketplace, and then she would go off to work. She would come back with a long piece of bread that had been picked at, probably from pinching away pieces to give to the many cats that she fed along the way. I love feeding cat's bread. Do they like bread? I feel like cats are very picky, it's not their go to. But I don't think they'd say no. I mean, it'd make more sense if it was like a fish just walking around with fish. Oh, the fish Lady's back. Michelle did have one problem, though, I'm gonna tell you about it in the most careful way possible, since people can get very passionate about this topic. She had too many of them at her home. Now, they're actually very well trained. Every once in a while you would hear a cat fight, but the fights were brief. It didn't bother anybody. They were just like, stop right, and that was it. But if you try to count them, Michelle would laugh because she lost count of how many cats she had. Also, but if we had to come up with the number, it would be over somewhere around a dozen ish cats just kind of roaming around. One of them was her favorite. Her name was Misky, like whiskey, but misky. She was a nice looking yellow cat with the fluffy tail. I imagine it like Garfield, Yes, Garfield, just like Garfield. I love it. Michelle showed up to the house one afternoon with Miskey in her arms, when it was just a tiny rat size looking thing. Before then she had already brought in a bunch of cats and neighbors now they could tell that Michelle's new favorite was misky, and hearing that happy young woman around that street was cool. From all those older nights, I thought I was an old crazy No, you're young. I'm a young person with twelve cat. I would not survive in a house with twelve cats. But one day Michelle got a scratch at her door. She opened it and it was a shiny black cat. Its eyes were some type of hidden color that you would have to look into at just the right angle and they would change, but some people say that they were red as expected. Michelle gave the cat food, water, and the cat stayed. It just came back, just stayed. Was welcome in the house. Obviously, they pick you. Michelle tried playing with the cat, and overly a touched ugly thing that would noow like a crying baby whenever she would go off to work during the week. But anyway, the many cats eventually started leaving. At one point you could only count fours at Michelle's house, and then three, and then finally there were only two, Misky and the black cat. One night, at around ten or so at night, there was a loud scream and it was from Michelle's house. She came out with Misky in her arms, and that yellow color of the cat was now stained with dark red. God, and when I hate this, the tail was drooping just loosely, like a cooked spaghetti in the wind. The fuck is happening. She knelt down in her tiny front yard, sobbing, looking up to the sky, all dramatic, and the black cat was looking through the window. Michelle already knew that the black cat had killed Misky, and she went to her neighbor to explain. Every She's just in a panic. Ah, you know, this cat killed Misky. So when Michelle picked up the cat, Misky, the black cat didn't like that, so it just kind of lunged for it and just kind of slashed through Miskey's body enough to make your stuff eating tore through its lungs. An anger, Michelle ran back inside. She grabbed the broom and went after the black cat to kind of show it away. I make sure I don't watch movies that have animal death in them, and you literally just did that to me. Sorry about that. Sorry, but it's for a good cause. Okay. Well actually it's just for me to share the legend here. But anyway, the black cat, as it was running away being shoot away by Michelle, cried and moaned like a newborn child. Its cry sometimes went deep into the night in anger and sadness. For days, it was like that until one day just stopped. But over the next several nights, the many cries of different cats started surrounding the door at Michelle's house. The cats were returning, but Michelle hadn't been seen for dates, and she wasn't there to greet them. Some of the cats found an entrance into the house through one of the windows, one of the kitchen windows that was up high. The white cat, the one with the spots. All these other cats started making their way into the house, and early one morning, after hours of NonStop cries of the many cats, the neighbors started asking questions. They were like, where's Michelle? So they gathered around the front gate of her house. Finally, the police were called and they started answering some of the questions. The truth was that the cats had arrived to the house to mourn the death of their loving caretaker. Because Michelle was found with d deep scratches on her throat, her face was now missing, her eyes, sticky blood was around her cold hands. But the thing is that the cats that Michelle had taken care of, they were just crying over the body like they hadn't done anything. All the blame had gone to the black cat. She was just there on her floor like stale bread, like the kind she used to carry home every day. However, the black cat was never seen again, but it has been heard the cat Lady is actually a famous legend. It's called the Legend of the Black Cat, or basically the Cat Lady, and this story is actually told around the town of Ensenada in Mexico's of this young woman and her love of cats. How eventually it led to her death as she welcomed in an evil entity disguised as a black cat into her home. Other story is told and retold over and over again. Nobody knows where it happened, nobody knows if it's true. Nobody knows if like it was actually a black cat or something else, but it managed to survive for many years. It might seem like one of those legends you make up, like a creepypasta type of thing, but it's like always told like as a recent story, so we're just assumed nineties for this. Black cats, though, were actually worshiped in ancient Egypt, as they should be. I mean, and I think they know it too, so bow to your lord. But I think cats kind of hate people. They're just kind of like, eh, I guess you can feed me. I guess I counter that with my parents' cat, Snowball, who's like a Norwegian forest cat. Snowball loves to just luxuriate and lay on his back and like show off as pink nipples to people and like he was loves tummy rubs and then taking saunas with my father and that's what they do all winter. Sounds a cool forest cat. Since cats were worshiped, I feel like they kind of got to their heads big egos about two thousand years ago. The culture of the Druids were just a bunch of pagans, right, like they had a lot of gods, spirits, that were animals, which is the whole package, like all the things that you can imagine in like, yeah, they're running around, they're worshiping nature. Yeah, yeah, before the Romans came. Yeah all that. I didn't know about the Romans, but yes, that they were there. I've got to learn all this stuff because it's so interesting. But anyway, many of the festivals that they held back then were at night and what better animal to represent nighttime than black cats. Once religion started taking over, now again I'm fast forwarding through a bunch of difficult religious movements and like the spread of the Catholic religion and all these other religions that are basically believing in just one God as they're trying to spread around the world with the teachings now that involve the Holy Trinity and everything. You know, women were not really a part of this of belief anymore, of like religion, and of course they would be sort of against the culture of the druids, especially with powerful women because you know, it's also what's it called metrilineal. There were a lot of just female lineage, like it was just it was a whole other world, you know. Yeah, So the church was like powerful women. No more like they were just you know, like no, But honestly, they did incorporate a lot of the holidays into the Christian calendar, so just FYI, you know, there's stuff we still celebrate. Actually, I looked up some of the things of what is it Halloween and All Saints Day November first, right, they put a lot of the practices that they used to do into that day because you can't get rid of them. So they kind of incorporated everything and became blended in with everything. They started to considering medicine women to be hags witch is basically devil worshipers classic. Yeah. And the cats though, they just kind of happened to be around because of the allure of the night from back then. They just kind of followed them, and these women just like them. It would be like they're familiar, yeah, kind of like Mexicans and our white poodles or white girls and butterflies. It's just kind of like a thing you kind of you just like, since beliefs were already becoming like all religious and anti pagan, they started saying that which has actually turned into black cats and cats were demon guides given to them by the devil. Himself. I mean that's pretty cool. If black cats actually had a function like that, I mean that would be rad. They did start blending in some of the culture, some of the practices that they do, especially with the sourin that's Halloween. Also, Ireland basically invented hew Halloween with souryn you know, like those things the celts and all that. Yeah, that's like where the first Halloween. It's an interesting definition that I found for it too, where it's just they call it like it's the end of the fertile season really like but also the brace yourself for the darkness that winters. Oh, like that's a cool I don't know. It's almost like it opens up a gateway to the spirits on Sowen, and then that gateway closes on the solstice because the sun wins again, you know, it's the longest night of the year. And then after that the sun starts to come back out again. So like that's like the real spooky season in magic, right, there is that dark season. That's what it is. Magical, That's what I'm thinking of. It's just this magical I imagine like fall colors, like it's just every day has over it like a yellow like kind of when California is burning and like it's oh yeah, Hayes just a weird but that's missed. It's missed in your fantasy and not smoke. Yeah. Add to this the babonic plague stuff. You know, once it hit, people are blaming the rats and then wait, black cats chase rats, and then who has these black cats? These women, the witches and all of that death could only be the fault of the devil and of all the witches that did its work and its shadowy black cats. You're just sitting there and you're like your town has the plague, and you're like, this is clearly the cause. Let me just connect the dots. This is it. This is the cause. It's like a conspiracy theory, Like, this is why we got the plague. Obviously it's because Sally's a witch. And then she has this cat. It's the cat's fault. The cat's actually the devil. Oh, that's it. We nailed it. Because so many things are like that. Like if you think about conflict nowadays too, I think in the future they're gonna be like they were fighting over that, Like, uh, it's gonna be embarrassing, but it makes so much sense for us. But anyway to summarize here, I know that I just kind of made cats look at the bad guy here. But also my point here was to show you how kind of dumb these ideas like that led us to believe that black cats are into this. I mean, I'm not trying to make you feel bad if you're superstitious or if you believe in something or this has to do with, oh, black cats are bad luck and it's part of my religion or something. But I don't think that would be a part of your religion because it's all superstition, right. I think it's fair to call people who are scared of black cats assholes. Hot take dang. Don't get me wrong. A cat can be a jerk, doesn't matter the color of their fur. But also they can be sweety pies, so it shouldn't matter. That's all I'm saying. It's a good message, but I do think that they they're amazing looking, you know, creatures. And I used to have a pet chicken. I don't know if this ever came up. I used to have a pet chicken. So you're a bird guy, I mean I like birds. Yeah, Actually I used to have a trained bird that would go under the door and go like to the outside and hang out in the porch the whole day. No cage, no nothing. It would just hang out there and they would just come back in at night and go into his cage in the house and that's it, and he would come back out in the morning. Until a cat a cat, Until a cat. Know, think about it, because this episode came from I just kid me right now, like a ah, that's not the point of it. Wasn't like cat, now that I think about it, Birds always meet a terrible end. I am sorry. I'm sorry to all the bird people out there, but anytime you have a bird, it just always has some sort of terrible end. So even though my bird got killed by a black cat, there are some good things that are also very popular with cats and other cultures. For example, like I said, with cats being worshiped in ancient Egypt, that's one thing, but also the Egyptians believe that they brought good luck and protection, which is quite the opposite of what the perception is or used to be. I don't know how much were changing. But also some people considered a black cat on a ship as a lucky omen in some parts of England that's great well, and also it'd kill all the rats for you, so that's what you need. But also they would say that if a black cat walked onto a ship and stayed, it was a sign of very good luck. So obviously back then you're like when you're about to go sailing, like you're on a ship, you're quite kind of questioning are we going to make it right? Or something going to happen here? Yeah, And also like superstition would be like if a woman set foot on a ship, the ship was cursed. So I don't know, sailor logic isn't exactly sound, you know what I mean. Also in Japan, black cats today are believed to bring prosperity, blessed marriages, ensure good harvests, and even help bring success to theater productions. Huh. That was one that I was not expecting, but I you know, appreciate it. Me neither, And it's great. I mean, sure, this opening night they just have to have a black cat like in the audience or like or is it an audience of black cats? It would be so cute. Oh is it so cute? I got this info from Discover magazine. I found it so odd, and the ending of this article is just didn't make any sense to me. But it said, so this Halloween, enjoyed the decorations in the folklore, but if you see a black cat, be nice to it and don't try to kiss its butt? What I try to read through the article just because I missed the reference to its butt or like how it I don't know what that means. I'm really confused to buy that. Yeah, it doesn't anyway. The whole article is basically saying are they good luck or bad luck? There's this Welsh author Mark Reese who posted verses of Welsh folklore that talk about black cats, and one of them was said, a black cat, I've heard it said, can charm all ill away and keep the house wherein she dwells from fever's deadly sway? Are you going to leave out the fact that they don't allow you to adopt black cats around Halloween because they're scared that people are going to sacrifice them. I didn't know that. What? Oh yeah, yeah, they stopped doing that because people like use them for nefarious things that have happened to black cats around that. It makes sense, It makes sense. I mean, I wish I could get a black cat, but I'm pretty sure my landlord's not gonna let me get another pet. I wish Robert had a black cat brother. They would get along. I know it'd be so cute. I always think of Salem in it was Sabrina the teenage Salem is a treat. Yeah, black cats, I love. Yeah. What are we going to talk about next week, Edwin? I don't know. I think it'll be a surprise Scary. Mystery Surprise is hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Komarubias. This podcast was edited and sound designed by Sarah Vorhez Wendel, a VW Sound