It’s National Black Cat Appreciation Day and here at Poppy’s Picnic we’re celebrating all the beautiful black cats and everything that makes them special and unique in their own ways. 

Black cats have suffered from a bad reputation with their connotations of folklore in recent years but they weren't always the key target of superstition. In fact, in Egyptian times cats, including black ones, were held to the highest respect and it was considered a crime to kill one. In Norse mythology, Freya, the goddess of  love, fertility and beauty rides on a chariot pulled by two black cats. Farmers would leave bowls of milk in their fields for her cats and in return she would bless the farmers with a good harvest.

It was later in the Middle Ages that they became associated with witches as the more lonely and poor women would feed the street cats. More recently, black cats have been subject to silly myths about “being unable to ‘instagram’ a black cat as they can be harder to photograph”. 

Did you know, black cats take 22% longer on average to find a home

But in some parts of the world black cats are considered to be good luck 

• In Scotland, a black cat arriving at your house is believed to bring good fortune 
• In Japan a black cat not only brings luck but also wards away demons, evil energies and even stalkers. 
• English superstition says that giving a bride a black cat on her wedding day will bring good luck in her marriage and that newlyweds that have a black cat in her home will live a long and happy life together. 
• Theatre folk in many cultures believe that if a black cat finds its way into your audience on an opening night you will have a long and successful run. 
• In the south of France black cats are known as “magician cats” or “money cats”. Those who show their cats proper respect like giving them a nice bed to sleep in or the first mouthful of every meal they will reward their human with good luck and wealth. 

So at the end of the day, I think we all can agree that black cats are really just as purrfect (see what we did there...) as all the others. 

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