Judika Illes - The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft - The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World

Today the concept of a person and bat exchanging shapes automatically brings Dracula to mind, and indeed the most common bat in modern Halloween imagery is the vampire. However, the bats that thrilled and chilled medieval Europeans were not vampires but “ordinary” bats; the original major fear regarding bats is that they would become entangled in a woman’s hair, not that they’d suck her blood. (With the exception of a very few blood-consuming species, bats eat either fruit or insects.)

Vampire bats are indigenous only to the Western Hemisphere. (The three surviving blood-consuming bat species range from Argentina to Mexico.) They are not and were never found in Central Europe, where the concept of an undead creature who survives by sapping the vitality of the living has existed since time immemorial. In certain areas of Central Europe and the Balkans, “ vampire ” and “ werewolf ” are synonymous; vampire is also used to indicate a “ witch ,” so vampire bat may also be understood to mean “ witch bat .” (See DICTIONARY: Vampire.)

Vampire bats received that name from the mythic vampire, not vice versa. After blood-consuming bats were “discovered” by Europeans, the name was bestowed upon them. Bram Stoker was intrigued by the concept of blood-consuming bats and so incorporated them into his novel Dracula , whose success forever changed perceptions of bats and mythical vampires, who were traditionally not always typecast as blood-suckers; many traditional vampires preferred consuming sexual fluids or more abstract life forces, such as the aura.

The concept of a mythic blood-consuming “vampiric” spirit was, however, well-known in Central and South America prior to European contact. Bats figure prominently in Central American myth. This is the area where blood-consuming bats do exist and so bats also have associations with death and blood sacrifice.

Not all associations with bats are negative, not even vampire bats. The Kogi people of northern Columbia associate the vampire with human fertility. Their euphemistic expression for a girl who begins to menstruate is that she has been “bitten by the bat.” According to the Kogi, the bat was the very first animal to be created, emerging directly from the Creator’s body.

Some tribes in New Guinea also perceive bats as fertility symbols, perhaps because of the prominent penis of some species located there.

In China, bats are regarded as especially auspicious, their very name a pun for luck. Bat images abound in art and ornamentation.

The Chinese five-bat design (Wu Fu) represents the five blessings:

Longevity

Prosperity

Health

Righteousness

A natural death

Bats figure prominently in African folklore. In East Africa, bats are witches’ mounts. In the Ivory Coast, bats represent souls of the departed, while in Madagascar, bats aren’t just any old souls but those of criminals, sorcerers, and the unburied dead.

Bats have powerful associations with death and ghosts. A hoodoo charm to stop ghostly harassment displays African magical roots: Should you feel that ghost’s unwanted presence, toss one single black cat hair, obtained without harming the cat, over your left shoulder saying, “Skit, scat! Become a bat!”

Rather than inspiring avoidance, associations of bats with witches and magic inspired the use of whole bat corpses and various anatomical parts (hearts, wings, blood) to be featured prominently in magic spells.

References to bat’s wings in magic spells may refer to holly leaves, which may always be substituted

Bat nuts (dried ling nuts), which if held from one angle resemble bats, may be substituted for bats in any spell

Similar to bat’s wings as code for holly leaves, “bat’s blood” may have been a euphemism for another magical ingredient, perhaps a resin. At some point, people did use real bat’s blood as ink. However, since the 1920s commercially marketed Bat’s Blood Ink is scented red ink.

Perhaps because bats were understood to be transformed witches they have also been used to protect from malevolent witchcraft. A particularly unpleasant English custom involved nailing a live bat above the doorway to ward off witches, perhaps akin to the American rancher’s practice of posting dead coyotes or wolves to warn others away.

Negative associations have taken a deadly toll: many species of bats are extremely endangered due to loss of their habitat and because people have perceived them as vermin fit for extermination. This terribly upsets the balance of nature: bats are genuine fertility figures, responsible for the pollination of many plant species, particularly in the desert. Without the bat, these botanical species cannot multiply. Bats are also responsible for insect-control: one bat can gobble up as many as 600 mosquitoes in one hour.

Modern witchcraft practices suggest that maintaining a bat house (similar to a bird house) on your property will bring joy and good luck.

Bears are conspicuous in witchcraft lore by their very absence. They are the creatures so sacred that many fear to mention their name.

This is no exaggeration. Bears are the animals of shamanism par excellence. Throughout Northern lands, whether North America, Europe or Asia, bears are the original sacred animal, sponsors and symbols of shamanic healing societies. They are the teachers and perhaps originators of shamanism. Because bears dig in the Earth, they are also understood as the original root-workers and possess profound connections with healing, herbalism, and root magic. Bears are simultaneously sacred and dangerous creatures, benevolent and frightening, possessing powers too strong for the uninitiated to withstand.

Shamanic religion is often synonymous with bear religion. In traditional shamanic cultures, bears were worshipped and venerated. These bear cultures (some survive; there once were many, ranging across the entire far Northern hemisphere) typically never utter the name “ bear ”: that would be like taking the Lord’s name in vain or maybe like not calling the devil so that he won’t come. Euphemisms are substituted: “ Big Brother ,” “ Old Honey Thief ,” and the like. (In a similar manner, ancient Greeks never mentioned the name of the Lord of the Dead; Hades, which names his realm and Pluto, meaning “ The Rich One ,” are both euphemisms.)

Bear religion is among Earth’s original religions. Fairly soon after people began worshipping mothers, they began worshipping bears, too. Sometimes both were worshipped simultaneously. Paleolithic goddess statuettes depict huge mother bears nursing petite human infants.

Bears possess a great resemblance to humans. They stand upright and eat a similar diet. In a Native American story, a boy abandoned in the woods far from other people discovers that out of all the forest animals, the only animal that he as a human can live with comfortably is the bear.

Ursus spelaeus, the cave bear, appeared on Earth approximately 300,000 years ago and was physically very similar to the modern brown (grizzly) bear. Other than slight anatomical differences, the major distinction was size: cave bears were huge , weighing up to one ton. They were perhaps 30 percent taller than brown bears.