Are Black Cats Really Bad Luck? 6 Myths Debunked

Myth 1: A Black Cat Crossing Your Path Brings Bad Luck

A black cat crossing your path predicts nothing except that a cat had somewhere to be. The superstition isn’t even consistent: in much of Britain and Ireland the same event was traditionally read as good luck, while other parts of Europe took the opposite view. Same cat, same path, different folklore.

The bad-luck version has medieval roots, when black animals in general got tangled up with ideas about the devil and the night. The cat’s habits didn’t help its case: a silent, nocturnal hunter that appears out of the dark was always going to collect stories.

That inconsistency is the tell, though. Luck that reverses at a border was never coming from the cat.

Myth 2: Black Cats Belong to Witches

The witch connection is medieval branding, not biology. During the witch trials of the 14th to 18th centuries, black cats were cast as familiars, described in the demonology of the time as low-ranking demons handed to witches by the devil [2]. Real cats, needless to say, were not consulted.

The costume-shop association survives every October. The cats never did anything to earn it.

Myth 3: It’s Unlucky to Adopt a Black Cat

Adopting a black cat is no different from adopting any other cat, but the superstition has a measurable cost, and the cats are the ones paying it. Figures from the RSPCA show black cats are nearly three times more likely to come into the charity’s care than any other coat colour, and they take around three times longer to find homes than tabbies [1].

The scale of the imbalance is striking. At the time of those figures the RSPCA was caring for 626% more black cats than ginger cats, and 25 times more black cats than white ones [1]. The reasons given are depressingly mundane: old superstitions, and the modern complaint that black cats don’t stand out in adoption photos. Meanwhile the cats themselves are, by every behavioural measure rescues use, exactly as adoptable as their flashier neighbours.

If you’re choosing a rescue cat, the black one at the back of the pen has usually been waiting longest. First cat households get the same gentle onboarding whatever the colour, and there’s practical advice for first-time cat owners to make the first weeks easier. The only luck involved is the cat’s, and you get to decide it.

Myth 4: Black Cats Are Less Friendly

Coat colour doesn’t set personality. A black cat’s temperament comes from the same mix as any cat’s: genetics beyond colour, early socialisation, and the home it lives in. The black coat itself is just a common gene variant producing extra dark pigment, which is why solid black cats appear in more than twenty recognised breeds as well as the general moggy population.

The unfriendly reputation mostly comes from misread signals. A dark face shows expressions less obviously in dim light, so people miss the friendly cues they’d catch instantly on a tabby and remember an aloofness that was never there. The fix is fluency rather than lighting.

The signals are all still there, just in monochrome. Once you know what a cat’s tail and ears are telling you, a black cat is as legible as any tabby: the upright greeting tail, the slow blink, the airplane ears when the hoover comes out.

The tail is the easiest part to read on a dark cat, since it shows up in silhouette against a pale wall when ear angle and pupils do not, and what each cat tail position means is the same whatever the coat colour.

Myth 5: Black Cats Don’t Photograph Well

Black cats photograph beautifully with light in the right place. The trick is simple: shoot towards a window or in open shade, expose for the cat rather than the background, and let the eyes carry the frame. Amber or green eyes against black fur is the single most dramatic look in domestic cat photography.

A bad phone photo is a lighting problem. It was never a cat problem.

Myth 6: Black Cats Are Considered Unlucky Everywhere

Black cats are considered lucky in a long list of traditions. In Japan they’re an omen of good fortune [2], British and Irish folklore has treated one arriving at the door as a sign of prosperity, and generations of sailors kept ship’s cats, black ones included, as working good-luck charms. Fishermen’s wives in some coastal communities kept a black cat at home for the same reason, to bring the boats back safe.

There’s an irony buried in that list. Britain, where black cats now wait longest in rescue pens, is one of the places that historically counted them lucky. The superstition doing the damage today isn’t even the local one.

Colour folklore runs in every direction once you start collecting it, and none of it survives contact with an actual cat. The fun facts about ginger cats make the same point from the other end of the colour chart: the fur is genetics, the personality is the cat.

So no, black cats aren’t bad luck. They’re cats: same purr, same headbutts, same opinion of closed doors. The only unlucky thing about them is how long they wait to be picked, and that one is entirely within our power to fix.