Also called black cat crossing your path, black cat luck
In the United States a black cat crossing your path is usually called bad luck, but in Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Japan black cats are often lucky. The bad reputation grew from Europe's witch-hunt era, when cats were cast as familiars; the claim that Pope Gregory IX ordered black cats killed is a myth.
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Take care: Never harm or frighten an animal because of a superstition. Some shelters pause black cat adoptions around Halloween to protect them; adopt with a long-term commitment.
In much of Britain a black cat crossing your path is good luck. Sailors valued them as ship's cats, and fishermen's wives kept black cats at home hoping to protect their husbands at sea.
In Japan black cats are generally lucky and are associated with the beckoning maneki-neko figure; black maneki-neko are sold to ward off evil.
The cat sìth is a fairy creature, a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Folklore warned it could steal a soul before burial, so people kept watch over the dead.
Cats were common in medieval households as mousers, and there is no evidence of a church-ordered massacre. Pope Gregory IX's letter Vox in Rama (1233) does describe heretics kissing a black cat in a secret rite, but it never orders cats killed, and the popular story that it led to cat purges and the Black Death is not supported by the text. The idea of the black cat as a witch's companion grew instead with the witch trials of the 1500s and 1600s, when cats were named as familiars in English cases.
English settlers brought those associations to North America, where the black cat crossing your path became a standard bad omen and a Halloween symbol. In Britain the same animal's link with magic turned lucky, and black cats appear on Victorian and Edwardian good-luck postcards. Today many animal charities use October to champion black cats and counter the old stigma, a fitting end for an animal once blamed for witchcraft.
Knocking on wood, or touching wood in Britain, is a quick ritual done after praising your own luck or mentioning something you hope will continue, to keep from 'tempting fate'. Its origin is disputed: tree spirits and the Christian cross are popular theories, but folklorists find the custom recorded only from the 1800s.
A home blessing for a dog, cat or other animal, modelled on the church blessings of animals held on St Francis's feast, October 4. It asks for health and safe return, and it comes with the practical checks that actually keep pets safe.
Crossing the middle finger over the index finger is a gesture to wish for luck or ward off bad luck. Its origin is unknown; the popular stories about early Christians or pagan wishing are unproven, and the gesture is only well documented from the 18th and 19th centuries.
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