What people say
A bat in the house means death — or, in China, five bats represent the five blessings.Animals · 90 searches a month
Bat superstitions
Bat superstitions: a bat in the house means death — or, in China, five bats represent the five blessings. First recorded in Medieval Europe as ill omen; Chinese sources as good fortune, it is about 726 years old — the 18th oldest of the 40 superstitions we have dated. A single bat eats up to 1 200 mosquitoes an hour. The animal most feared in European tradition is among the most useful to have nearby.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Medieval Europe as ill omen; Chinese sources as good fortune
That makes it
about 726 years old
Rank by age
18 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Animals
Searched
90 a month
Nocturnal, silent, mammalian and airborne at once — bats fit no obvious category, and things that fit no category attract unease across cultures.
Why it stuck. The Chinese reading runs on a pun rather than fear: the word for bat, fú, sounds like the word for good fortune, so bats appear on wedding textiles and porcelain.
What is going on
A single bat eats up to 1 200 mosquitoes an hour. The animal most feared in European tradition is among the most useful to have nearby.Where it applies. Feared across Europe, celebrated across China — the sharpest reversal of any omen in this set.
Recorded around the same time
Bat superstitions is the 18th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →