Superstitions About Bats

Here are some superstitions and folk-lore about bats from the 1900’s:

If a bat bites you, the wound will never heal.

The bat, or bawdy-bird, is the witches’ bird; and when they hover around it is the witches’ hour, when they have power over all human beings who are not shielded from their influence. A bat is therefore very generally considered a bird of evil omen, in many parts foretelling death.

Bats flying late in the evening, indicate fair weather.

Bats who squeak flying, tell of rain to-morrow.

If bats flutter and beetles fly about, there will be a fine morrow.

It is unlucky to kill a bat that flies into your room; it is a good omen if it lights for a moment on some object in the room.

If a bat flies into the kitchen and at once hangs on to the ceiling, it is lucky; but if it circles around twice before alighting, it is bad.

If, in trying to drive a bat out of the room, the creature should fly against a light or candle and put it out, it is a very bad omen.

If a bat flies into your house, look out for bedbugs.

Bats are regarded as unlucky; but the evil attending their coming into a house can be warded off, by catching them and hanging them over the door.

The name of the bat is never mentioned in India after nightfall; people who do, will lose all their property.

If a bat flies around the house three times in succession, it is a sign of bad luck.

In Scotland, if the bat, in flying rises, and then descends again east-ward, it is thought dangerous to go out of the house.

Some people think that bats fasten themselves in the hair, and that the hair would have to be clipped to remove them.

If a bat circles around your head three times, it presages a death.

The bat (a winged animal) was regarded by the Caribs as a good angel, which protected their dwellings at night; and it was accounted sacrilegious to kill one.

There existed formerly in Alsace, a curious belief that bats had the power to render the eggs of storks unfruitful.

You will die soon, if you kill a bat.

If, in the evening, you see a bat in the chimney, a misfortune is coming. (Belgium.)

In regard to the superstition that the bat is an omen of evil, a correspondent from Gloucestershire, England, writes: “A lady told me that three of her sisters had died, and that on each occasion a bat had flown into the house. But one evening a bat came in when everybody in the house was well, and there was no cause for anxiety at home or abroad. This they took for a good sign and believed the spell was broken, but that very night the cook died suddenly of heart-complaint, having gone to bed, as all believed, in her usual good health.”

It is believed in Italy, that the presence of bats will throw some people into convulsions. A physician, Antonio Vallisneri, relates a curious instance of this kind. He shut up a bat in a box in the room of the patient, who, on entering, although unaware of the presence of the bat, went into convulsions, and did not come out of them until the bat was removed.

At Polperro, Cornwall, the bat is thus addressed:

“Airy mouse, airy mouse! fly over myhead,
And you shall have a crust of bread;
And when I brew and when I bake,
You shall have a piece of my wedding cake.”