WELCOME TO AN ENTERTAINMENT SITE FOR SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCERS!
Enjoy this curated selection of theme-related dances for celebrations and holidays, or find a dance associated with a special calendar day, or EVEN your own birthday!
Oct 27
Black Cat Night
Black Cat
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
"Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For wander and wail as he would
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?"
~ The Cat and the Moon, W. B. Yeats, 1919
Tonight’s the night, kitty-cats and dancers! 🐈⬛
Despite their notoriously spooky reputation during the centuries when fear of witches and witchcraft ran high, black cats have not always been creatures of ill omen.
In Scotland and many other cultures, a black cat could just as easily mean good fortune, prosperity, or a welcome bit of luck. Scottish folklore happily embraces both sides of the mystery — which makes this energetic 32 bar jig for 2 couples, devised by John Drewry, a happy tribute for any
household black cats and their owners!
On the decidedly darker side lurks the Cat Sìth (or Cat Sìthe) of Highland folklore — a great supernatural black cat, usually described with a distinctive white patch upon its chest. It was said to prowl the Highlands and, most ominously, might steal the soul of a newly dead person before it could safely pass on.
This fear became associated with the Late Wake, when the dead were watched over before burial. Keeping the Cat Sìth away apparently called for rather more imagination than simply shutting the door. Fires might be kept away from the body because warmth could attract a cat, while catnip, music, riddles, dancing and even wrestling were used to keep everyone awake — and, according to tradition, distract any supernatural feline with designs upon the departed.
But even the Cat Sìth wasn’t always bad news. At Samhain, households might leave out a saucer of milk for it. Treat the mysterious visitor generously and the household might receive blessings in return; neglect it, and the cows might mysteriously stop giving milk. Apparently even supernatural Highland cats knew how to lodge a complaint.
And an ordinary black cat could be luckier still. In Scottish tradition, the arrival of a strange black cat at the home was sometimes associated with prosperity!
So tonight, beware the Cat Sìth, keep the milk saucer handy, and if a mysterious black cat appears at the door... perhaps don't be too quick to shoo it away.
Meow, purr — and dance! 🕺 💃 🖤 🖤 🖤 🐈⬛ 🐈⬛ 🐈⬛ 🎃 🎃 🎃 🧙♀️ 🧙♀️ 🧙♀️
Black Cat
Black Cat Night is celebrated October 27th in the UK, while in the United States, Black Cat Appreciation Day is earlier in the year on August 17th.
The folklore surrounding black cats varies from culture to culture. In much of European history, black cats have often been looked upon as a harbinger of bad tidings or as the familiars of witches, and so the superstitions associating black cats with bad luck are rife.
The unlucky European association with black cats and bad luck appear to stem from the middle of the fourteenth century. The belief that they were associated with the devil's machinations were so persistent that they were all but exterminated during the Black Death pandemic around 1348 CE. Ironically, killing off the cats only worsened the plague, which was often spread via rodents, which all the cats could have helped kill.
Despite their unlucky reputation in some parts of the world, black cats are also considered good luck in many parts of Britain and Japan. In fact, in Japan there is a special black cat café, Nekobiyaka in Himeji. Black cats roam freely and wear different coloured bandanas to tell them apart!
There are three variants of the black fur gene (solid black, brown, and cinnamon), and the hue works in conjunction with the pattern. If a cat has a solid black hue, but also the dominant tabby stripe gene, heavy exposure to the sun can make the pigment in its fur break down to reveal its once-invisible stripes! The Cat Fanciers’ Association recognizes 22 different breeds that can have solid black coats—including the Norwegian Forest Cat, Japanese Bobtail, and Scottish Fold—but the Bombay breed is what most people picture. Its resemblance to a "black panther" is no coincidence. In the 1950s, a woman named Nikki Horner was so enamored with how panthers looked that she bred what is now refer to as the Bombay.
Although the negative black cat superstitions still resonate, fortunately, the idea that black cats are more likely to languish in shelters does not hold up to real statistical analysis, though this idea is still widely promulgated.
Drink a toast to these oft maligned animals during this Hallowe'en season with a Black Cat Martini, made with black vodka and Chambord.
And to read more about the black cat's unfortunate history with humans, click the vintage Black Cat Fortune Telling Game, issued from the same location where their reputation was further sullied, Salem, Massachusetts, during the infamous Witch Trials of 1692.
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
