The Animals of Halloween
Since the beginning of time, superstitions have been woven into the ages of our civilization and are deeply embedded in our culture. Even in this age of wisdom, enlightenment, and technology, many of us cannot help but give into the irrational voice in our head that whispers, ”Don’t forget to throw that pinch of salt over your shoulder. Don’t open that umbrella in the house. It’s Friday the 13th—be extra careful. Don’t let that black cat cross your path.” Many animals are involved in superstitions, specifically linked to Halloween, like bats, owls, spiders and crows. How did all this start?
According to author Anthony Altorenna, “it may have started long ago, when the ancient Celtics lit large bonfires as darkness approached to ward off the evil spirits of the night. According to the legends, the Celtics believed the ghosts of their ancestors returned to earth once each year on the night of October 31, when the spirits of the dead could cross over into the world of the living.”
As bonfires burned into the night, the glow and warmth of the fires attracted mosquitos and other flying insects, which attracted hungry bats, swooping and darting in and out of the bonfire’s dusky light in search of their prey.
Bats
““The dark, shadowy, and fast moving shapes flying through the semi-darkness may have appeared to the Celtics as the embodied spirits of the returning the dead, and the symbol of the bat became forever embedded in the roots of Halloween lore.””
Medieval folklore also described bats as witches' companions. Seeing a bat on Halloween was considered to be an omen. One myth indicated that if a bat flew into your house on Halloween, it was a sign your house was haunted because ghosts had let the bat in.
The discovery of the vampire bat in South America centuries ago strengthened the stories of misaligned bats searching for a blood meal. “Many believed the unfortunate victims transformed mysteriously into human vampires that sought the blood of more victims. As stories of human vampires spread, it was widely believed that the vampire could transform into the shape of the bat—creating another tie between the evil winged creatures of the night with the symbols of Halloween.” To set the record straight, there are only three species of bats that practice hematophagia; they all live in Latin America. Vampire bats do not actually suck blood, but lap it up from small wounds they create with sharp canine teeth.
Most of us are reasonable enough to recognize that bats are wrongly demonized and, in fact, are incredibly valuable to our environment. They are extremely adaptable, inhabiting almost every continent and have acclimated to living around human populations and are some of the most successful urban living animals. Many bats eat fruit and spread the seeds of new growth through their feces, making them very important to plants and trees. According to the Eco Health Alliance, some bats that feed on nectar have tongues that extend as far as one third of their body length and are just as important for a plant’s pollination as bees or other nectar eating animals.
Most bats eat insects, which helps save crops. Bats also play an important role in maintaining human health by consuming mass quantities of mosquitoes that can spread disease to humans including Zika virus, West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, dengue and malaria. Bats have voracious appetites, eating over 1,000 flying insects in a single night! They hunt their prey using echolocation, a type of radar that enables them to zero in on flying insects in total darkness.
How you can help
Sadly, many of the world's bat species are in serious decline, threatened by the loss of habitat for nesting and roosting sites. You can help by hanging a bat house to encourage these interesting, harmless and beneficial predators to take up residence in your yard.
Owls
Owls have become a universal symbol for spookiness and may be touted as the official mascot of Halloween.
Brian Gehring with the Bismarck Tribune states, “The owl was a favorite of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. The Greeks believed owls were a gift from the gods and their keen eyesight and stealth gave them a distinct advantage over their enemies. The Romans, however, had an opposite view of owls. They viewed owls as creatures of the underworld and a sign of impending doom or death. Ancient Romans would often nail a dead owl to their door as a warning to evil spirits.”
“Native American cultures developed a wealth of folklore about owls, differing widely across the continent. Many tribes thought they brought sickness and death. Some believed they were protective spirits and a few tribes considered them to be the earthly form of gods.”
In some cultures, owls were linked to magical powers, were the messengers of sorcerers, and some believed witches could turn themselves into owls.
In some cultures, owls are the only creatures that can live with ghosts, so if one is found nesting in an abandoned house, it is considered haunted. The barn owl is known as the ghost owl, among other names. Its white appearance, wings spread as it flies, and an eerie scream instead of a hoot, portrays it as a ghost flying in the night.
Owls have often been perceived as messengers, even accompanying the souls of the dead to the afterlife. The owl as a messenger took on new life in Harry Potter, as Hogwarts’ students had their own personal owls who delivered mail and ran errands. The night before our first granddaughter was born, two Great Horned owls hooted in unison in our backyard!
According to Adrienne Mayor, a folklore historian at Stanford University, history has not been kind to these creatures of the night. “They’ve been associated with witches, taken as a bad omen. Just the fact that you don’t know where they are, but you hear this terrifying sound. That’s pretty scary when you think humans once lived in the dark. With a piercing stare, a head that rotates 270 degrees, screeches, hoots and screams and nocturnal living, it’s easy to see how people of the Middle Ages associated them with demons, darkness and All Hallows’ Eve, when the ghosts of the dead were thought to wander at night.”
Luckily today, we recognize owls as nature’s free pest control and keepers of nature’s ever important balance. Owls are keystone species, a term coined by Robert Paine in 1969. “Keystone species are animals that help manage other animal species by controlling population numbers and biodiversity within an ecosystem. The impacts of keystone species are usually greater than their numbers. For example, one owl can eat a large number of rodents and small mammals, with few animals preying on the owl in return. Because of this, owls can be a great benefit to places where rodent populations are high. Dense urban areas often suffer from an abundance of rats and mice spreading disease, and rural agricultural communities have their crops consumed and soil eroded from burrowing voles and field mice. Without owls, and other top predators, rodent populations could explode and exacerbate the effects they produce.”
Simply stated by the theory of trophic cascade, if the owls of a particular habitat are healthy and plentiful, it is fairly safe to assume everything happening within the food chain below is normal. But if the owls begin to develop illnesses or decline in numbers, it is equally safe to assume that something significant has changed somewhere in the relationships below it.
How you can help
Along with a bat box, install an owl box, as well, to encourage owls to take up residence in your yard. Learn more about incredible owls.
Spiders
Another mainstay for Halloween is the spider! A common source of fear, spiders make some people squirm. They join the ranks of bats in folklore as being companions of witches. Did you know if you spot a spider on Halloween, it means the spirit of a deceased loved one is watching over you?
Spider symbolism abounds in ancient mythology and is associated with industriousness, patience, cunning, mischief and malice, all of which contributed to fables and folklore that were passed down through generations to become the basis of the many superstitions we are familiar with today.
Spiders are significant keepers of ecological balance, helping control the insect population, keeping disease at bay and protecting our crops. Just like snakes, spider venom is used in human medicine research.
Research into the design and strength of spiders’ webs has led to producing super strong artificial silk used in parachutes and bullet proof vests.
Ancient Chinese culture calls spiders happy insects. It was believed to be particularly lucky if they dropped down from the ceiling, as if they were dropping down from heaven. An East European folktale tells the story of a poor, hardworking widow who bought her children a Christmas tree but couldn’t afford to decorate it. On Christmas Eve, the children went to bed sad, but when they awoke, the tree was covered with cobwebs that shimmered in the sunlight - tinsel was born.
How you can help
Next time you encounter a spider, don’t kill it! Think about the benefits it provides and thank it!
Crows
Crows are an iconic part of our Halloween culture and are shrouded in myth and folklore. Even the ebony color of their feathers is associated with death and sin in Western culture. Additionally, crows will eat carrion, which can evoke creepiness to some.
Edgar Allen Poe formidably immortalized them in his poem, The Raven. Shakespeare characterized the birds as harbingers of evil and doom in Macbeth and Othello. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds sealed the crow in a mid-century, ill-fated aura. Even a collection of crows is called a murder. But not all literature misaligns them. In Aesop’s fable, The Crow and the Pitcher, the crow is heralded as smart and creative. In one Native American story, the raven (crow’s cousin) is described as a shape-shifter who stole a box of light held by the chief of Heaven and flew away with it. The raven dropped the box, and light broke into many pieces, creating the stars, the moon, and the sun.
These highly intelligent and social birds are so much more than creepy. Some scientists think crows have the intelligence of a third grader! Crows have the ability to think ahead, often caching items for later use. Their family units are vast and strong, with one brood helping raise another. They also have facial recognition and are fabulous problem solvers. I work with a crow that is full of personality and can be affectionate.
A crow family can consume a massive amount of pest insects, helping to protect our crops and backyard gardens. They are also nature’s sanitation engineers cleaning up roadkill keeping our environment healthy. They can also transport and store seeds helping renew forests. What an incredible animal neighbor!
Folklore is part of our heritage and makes for great storytelling. These tales are powerful and often perpetuate through the ages having great influence over what we think of a particular species. Don’t let the falsehoods found in many of these tales continue with you. Enjoy the stories and all the fun they bring, but put some knowledge in your quiver and spread the word; our animal neighbors need our support, so they can do their jobs. A healthy environment means healthy humans!
