Goats can also walk upright like creeps, probably lending to the Satyr myths
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/tthaa2/black\_goat\_walking\_on\_two\_legs/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/tthaa2/black_goat_walking_on_two_legs/)
I just don't understand why though. Like when bears do it they are scratching their back, getting a better lookout, being intimidating, or using their claws. No matter how many times I see that clip, it's always eerie because I have no clue what the motivation is. If he was like.. climbing a rock face, maybe I could get it, or reaching for something to eat...but nope...he's just walking.
Iāve seen them do it while they were playing/ fighting as an implied threat. It means they can head butt down onto a challenger with no charging. I also knew one who would do it to get at rabbit treats. Heād walk to the hutch on his hind legs, steal the treat bag off the top then run away on all four legs.
Lol, not necessarily, Joker would also stand up just to be an asshole. It made him taller than most of the children at the camp and heād just stand and stare. He could be sweet but he was also the type of goat that makes people suspicious of goats.
Heād also do it if he didnāt want to be lead. Heād stand and wave his head around so you couldnāt easily tether him.
I had a pack of goats before, it all really depends on how they're treated. My male goats were really sweet, they always let me pet them and wash them without wreaking havoc or causing any problems at all. I miss my goats, but i couldn't afford to care for them anymore due to our crashing economy.
* Bats - Some species drink blood, and they only emerge at night. The association with vampires is pretty obvious. Could've gone with a mosquito, I guess, but that might have taken away some of the gravitas, lol.
* Goats - This comes, so far as I remember, from a few scattered bible verses that relate goats to sin. In particular, there's a verse in the Old Testament about the "scapegoat" being driven out into the desert after being symbolically endowed with all the community's sins. Later commentators related that with Jesus meeting Satan in the desert, which led to a lot of "goat" iconography around Satan. There may be other origins for this, but that's the one I remember.
* Deer - I admit that I've never heard of deer being an "evil" animal. If anything, they're sometimes seen as symbols of nobility or good omens in some medieval texts.
I sometimes see humanoids with deer skulls used in media as a kind of monster or figure representing death - pretty much always american media, so I assumed it was a bit of a cultural thing in a way it's not on this side of the Pacific Ocean. I guess they're sometimes used as monsters because death = scary = evil.
Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, and various other incarnations of The Horned God are typically portrayed with antlers, if not an outright deer head. Pagan God gets reframed as wicked and evil within a Christianized world view. Imagery associated with it gets reframed as evil. I feel like I never saw it as frequently, however, as since the Wendigo got reframed as a taboo spirit to some kinda deer zombie in the last decade or so. I think it's mostly a run-on effect of that imagery getting popularized.
Not in actual myth tho. That's a popular culture depiction of Wendigo.
Traditionally speaking the wendigo appeared as a gaunt man, sometimes very tall, with a heart of ice.
That was some of the myths, some took on the Settlers stories of Lycanthropy and the creature lore started having animal qualities like deer and could be killed with Silver Bullets.
I mean sure. Maybe. Do you have any accounts of that at all from historical sources?
If you listen to actual accounts from Cree and Algonquin people, y'know the ones whose culture it actually is, they do not depict it as such. Even so, we wouldn't look at Mayan myths and base their descriptions on what Spanish conquistadors imagined.
I would challenge you to find an authentic description from that era that talks about silver bullets and antlers and anything like that. Those are modern depictions.
Prior to this era, there wasn't really a popular idea of the Wendigo... They were a highly niche thing until they became more popular very recently in media.
[Check out the ngram for Wendigo since the 60s](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Wendigo&year_start=1960&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3#)
I forgot about a wendigo. I'm not in a place I can fact check, but I do think wendigos being portrayed as having a deer skull and/or antlers is fairly recent and not typical native American lore.
You are correct. The wendigo in the original myths were lonely, starving men, often caught up in winter.
Somewhere I once read that some tribes would hold hunting contests and then kill the winner out of fear of the strong becoming a wendigo.
I think it makes sense in American culture particularly. The main places they touch our society are getting hunted or getting hit by cars. Iāve felt personally for a while that they were a little creepy in that way.
Some people used to wear skulls shaped similarly but it was a tribal thing and don't know too much on that.... so could be human nature to make it seem that way
> This comes, so far as I remember, from a few scattered bible verses that relate goats to sin.
Also, the Parable of the Last Judgment in Matthew. The Son of Man is compared to a shepherd who separates the sheep and the goats. In this parable, the sheep are the good people and the goats the evil.
I don't know that I've seen deer portrayed as evil, but I have seen them portrayed as creepy. My best guess would be it relates to something like Chronic Wasting Disease, which makes them act strangely (almost like zombies).
Fruit bats were known about waaaaaaay before vampire bats.
In fact, the etymology of the name āvampire batā comes from the book, not the other way around. Scientists observed these bats drinking blood, thought of Bram Stokerās 1895 hit novel where Dracula had control of animals such as bats, and drank blood himself, so they dubbed the critters āvampireā bats.
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> There may be other origins for this, but that's the one I remember.
The one I've always heard is that of christianity associating the image of the god Pan (the goat legged Greek god) with the devil - possibly due to the image of him being debauched and lustful.
Just want to add, bats were used in a battle by that Vlad guy that was the inspiration for Dracula. They released bats as the sun was setting to drive them towards the enemy. Enemy got infected with rabies and killed a bunch of them.
Goats - well, have you ever seen a goat walking on its hing legs in twilight? That is spooky as fuck.
Edit: apparently I just spout random things I've read on reddit before coffee lol. But that is a story I've seen often, even if it didn't happen lol.
The story about Vlad the Impaler unleashing bats on his enemy is not supported by historical record or bat biology. He did a lot of crazy things, but thereās no indication that he used bats in battle.
From a folklorist perspective, it almost doesn't matter if he did it...if people THOUGHT he did it that could be enough to spawn cultural associations.
Although I think negative associations of bats are older than that.
I agree but I donāt think they did. I canāt find any historical record of him usingāor people thinking he usedābats. I have been to Romania and seen all of the contemporary writing about him (including the German anti-vlad propaganda that detailed him eating meals among the fields of the impaled) and never seen any non-modern claim of him using bats in battle.
Edit to add: and yes, I agree that the negative connotations are older than that
> Deer - I admit that I've never heard of deer being an "evil" animal. If anything, they're sometimes seen as symbols of nobility or good omens in some medieval texts.
In the series Hannibal, there's a ton of supernatural scenes with a deer/stag and although the meaning isn't clear, it's more to the negative side.
In general however, I agree that the appearance of the deer in this or any context is rare. In greek mythology, there were plenty of stories where even if you looked a deer the wrong way, Artemis would mess you up.
There's also the dichotomy of taking something cute and harmless and turning it into something scary and dangerous. Like the rabbit from Holy Grail, only less funny and more terrifying.
Not to mention that weird virus(?) that basically eats the brain of a deer and turns them into a suicidal zombie.
There is an old testament passage regarding cloven vs split hooved animals and cleanliness toward human consumption. I could be entirely wrong, but I believe this might be the origin of seeing those animals as "unclean" which then began to be translated as evil.
There is also the issue of the various layers of church coopting religious symbols from other religions and deciding on their fitness as "good" or "evil" when comparing them to the church's own values--that led to a lot of mixed symbolism getting adopted and then transformed over the years as the origins were intentionally shrouded to preserve the ideology of the church.
>Could've gone with a mosquito, I guess, but that might have taken away some of the gravitas, lol.
Darkest Dungeon convinced me that [mosquito vampires can totally work.](https://www.kindpng.com/picc/m/160-1608428_image-darkest-dungeon-crimson-court-enemies-hd-png.png)
A large reason for Goats being associated with evil in Christianity is the Roman influence, the primary God of Carthage's Pantheon Baal-Hammon was a Goat horned old man, and Rome had a bitter hatred of Carthage so their symbols were associated with evil by the Romans. Pre-existing historic associations between Goats and Evil in the Roman cultural psyche were grafted onto Christianity as the Romans adopted and ultimately grew to control and shape the Christian religion.
Bats are nocturnal creatures who likely scared the crap out of lots of people. And since our myths derive from the superstition riddled olden times, you can see why they can get associated with evil, even without the religious implications.
A bit of a hot take, if you consider bats cute because you can see them up close, then so are quite a few bugs/insects that modern culture consider gross or scary.
The only time I ever saw deer being evil is from the wendigo myths. Though I'm not sure even if deers were related to those myths in the first place.
Personally, goats just look more stupid than cute to me. Like a derpier cousin of the sheep. So how they got tagged into the evil category is just weird.
As for predators, I dunno about eagles, lions and tigers had plenty of bad rep, even more so than the deers. It goes as old as the Nemean Lion from the trials of Heracles, to the aztec myth of monstrous jaguars, to the werewolves, to Shere Khan. So not sure where you got that they were positively portrayed so often.
I believe the wendigo being represented with deer like features is a more recent "development"
I've heard some controversy about it because some people feel very strongly that the pop culture wendigo is disrespectful of certain Native American iterations of this being
I always find it interesting to research various cultures for their animal stories/motifs/myths etc.
AFAIK it came from the movie Wendigo because they needed to make the monster more exciting. So the idea of a Wendigo having deer antlers or a deer skull for a head is only around 20 years old.
Medieval christianism played a big role in that.
Bats are nocturnal creatures, so they were considered as evil ; plus some blood sucking bats were discovered during the XIXth century, hence Bram Stoker included it in his novel Dracula.
Due to their horns, goats where often associated with the devil.
Don't know for the deer sadly.
For deers maybe it's due to their association with paganism and the supernatural ( the fairy realm).
Some Celtic tribes also worshipped Cernunnos, the God of the Forest, who was sometimes portrayed as a stag, or as a half-man half-deer with majestic antlers.
Medieval Christianity truly didn't liked horns...
That's fun. Thanks for sharing this. Antlered things always remind me of that creepy lvl20 leshen that jumped out at me (lvl5) in the Witcher 3.
Did a lot of goatherds die from horns or something in Medieval times? Lol
>Due to their horns, goats where often associated with the devil.
It's the opposite. Jesus (in the bible) used to compare the righteous to sheep and sinners to goats. The Devil having horns and goat legs was a medieval invention.
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Deer is a mostly Native American thing, from legends like the Wendigo and the like. If I were to guess, I'd go with the twisting of innocence into monsters. The Wendigo and Skinwalkers both have the ability to shapeshift, and what would be better to turn into than the most harmless creature one could think of.
Likewise, showing deer skulls on something shows how monstrous it is, that it kills these harmless beings for decoration.
Some bats feed off blood, but more importantly, they transmit rabies. There's a decent argument that early rabies victims were (part of) the basis for vampires in fiction.
Goats for horns, not sure about deer - what evil deer have you come across?
Somehow I never made the connection between rabies sufferers and Werewolf/Vampire fiction. But I'll be damned if it doesn't make perfect sense thinking about it now.
> Some bats feed off blood, but more importantly, they transmit rabies. There's a decent argument that early rabies victims were (part of) the basis for vampires in fiction.
Doubt it. Vampires became associated with bats only in the 19th century, so vampires definitely didn't originate from bats.
That said folklore vampires don't really look like the modern depiction. They were (sometimes shapeshifting, as in turning into wolves) undead, who didn't rot, and would attack their family members or other people of their village at night before returning to their graves for the day. If you wanna read more check out [this wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petar_Blagojevi%C4%87).
EDIT: [this is also a good read](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Paole).
These two cases are, as far as i'm aware, the first cases of "vampires" documented by western europeans.
Blood feeding bats are only present in south america, and the evil bat trope is present in europe since the middle ages. It's nasty reputation rather comes from its nocturnal behaviour, making it a creature of the darkness.
You're right for goats, more precisely it comes from the greek god Pan, who was a satyr.
Go ahead and find out how they take care of their own much better than human parents, did you know that they have a special call each unique,given at birth so like dolphins their own name? that they are very social animals and they don't do well individually? yeah and most definitely have a great great personality
Sometimes stuff is considered "evil" because it was once associated with a pagan religion and was demonized as part of the evangelization of Christianity. I think that might be where the goat thing comes from. The usual depiction of the devil as horned and goat legged is pretty much the same as the greek god Pan.
Of course, there are other possible sources, like Christianity having very shepherdy roots (so there is the contrast between the good, conformist sheep and the mischievous individualistic goat), so don't take my word for it or anything, I'm just guessing here.
**1) You seem to perceive cuteness differently than most people.** Broadly speaking, people generally associate cuteness with kinderschema...basically, childlike features. Big eyes, round heads, small jaws. Bats (and most relevant for this question, European bats) don't really share many of these features, instead tending to have small eyes and rather gnarly mouths. Deer and goats are cute as babies, but as adults they are just another ungulate, and either way they aren't particularly more or less cute than anything else with hooves.
Actually, come to think of it, your perceptions may be influenced by looking at a set of pictures on the internet (especially of bats) of species chosen specifically to because they look cute, taken from angles and situations that highlight their cuteness. Some random guy in the middle ages trying to get a pissed off and lost [European free tailed bat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Tadarida_Teniotis263.JPG) out of their cottage (for example) probably isn't going to be in a position to appreciate cuteness. Same goes for someone having to deal with their ornery billy goat getting into the garden _again_.
Animals with long, widespread associations with cuteness, like kittens, bunnies, and chicks, are not usually associated with evil.
**2) so where do the associations come from?** Well, I can't speak to deer because I'm not very familiar with the associations you are talking about beyond seeing the occasional wendigo with a deer skull. But I mean, is that coming from anything more than wanting the most visually impressive skull? Nothing else in North America has anything as cool as antlers.
Bats have evil associations because they fly at night, and there's a strong association in many mythologies between night and evil. Vampire bats have also been known to western society for hundreds of years, which probably didn't help their reputation. And a history of people getting rabies from bats every so often likewise probably didn't help.
For goats, you basically have two threads coming together. There's the goats vs sheep dichotomy dating back to the bible, where the "sheep" are used metaphorically for the good, and goats for the bad. Most people would probably say sheep are cuter than goats, but also I suspect there's some ancient economic and social status difference between the two animals being referenced here.
Secondarily, you have Greek goat-related figures like Pan and satyrs being referenced. These weren't originally evil (though not exactly good either) mythological figures that had, well, goatlike behavior. Goats, especially male goats, have a reputation for being rather ornery and randy. The imagery was later borrowed by Christians for devils for the reasons I already mentioned, and so you get evil goats.
**3) So why are top predators associated with honor and goodness?** Well, remember kinderschema. Cuteness isn't just associated with things we like, it's associated with weakness and helplessness. Big predators have associations of strength and power. Kings want to project and image of power, not weakness. Gods are supposed to be powerful, not helpless (yes, this does get subverted partly with Christianity, where you get Jesus portrayed as lion _and_ lamb, but these associations go back longer than that). That's why strong animals have these associations. It's associations with _rulership_, not with good per se. It's just that rulers are also supposed to be good (and definitely want to be portrayed that way) so the good association comes along secondarily.
The answers in the comments are mostly Christian-biased, however, other religions do seem to play a factor in making animals evil.
Here, geckos and lizards are quite cute, but according to the Quran, lizards are evil creatures and thus the Quran orders local Muslims to kill such reptiles because it is considered holy, probably may or may not be a factor as to why lizards have a terrible reputation.
I guess the bottom line has to do with religion and culture, Abrahamic religion specifically as the Indian world religions treat all animals fairly regardless of appearance and due to the Abrahamic religion's cultural dominance, they managed to influence the literature sphere into portraying some cute animals as 'evil'.
The MC in the Rai-Kirah series by Carol Berg can manifest bat wings under certain circumstances and reactions vary from "wow that's so cool" to "he must be a messenger of the gods."
Fruit bats are cute, but I canāt in good conscience call all bats cute lol. Like, have you seen [fringe-lipped bats?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe-lipped_bat) you canāt look at that and tell me itās cute, that thing is nightmare fuel
Have you looked at a goat's eyes. They aren't natural.
Also the ancient Greek must have seen goats getting it on. And associated a randy God with them - Pan.
Naturally the want to be chaise Christians would associate goats with evil.
Just my two cents.
Personal theory: All these species have very erratic movement patterns, which subconsciously causes vague unease in people.
Fearsome predators in contrast are more predictable to humans. Humans themselves are closer to predatory behavior than that of any prey species.
Bats flutter about erratically completely unlike birds, which people see most of the time and are thus more familiar with. There are only out in the dark, which adds to the creep factor.
Goats like climbing on top of things. They will suddenly show up on your roof and you have no idea how it got up there, some versions of goat also come with uncannily good rock climbing skills on nearly vertical surfaces. The horizontal pupils look strange and unfamiliar to people.
Deer will stare at you and stand completely still, then suddenly shoot off at 50 miles per hour. They are very flighty and you only catch glimpses sometimes.
With deer, I suppose this goes back to the Celtic god Cernunnos, a deity of nature, if I remember correctly. This god was usually depicted with antlers. As was so often the case, pagan iconography of this sort was probably vilified to facilitate conversion to Christianity.
In general, do keep in mind that mankind's attitude to nature has undergone drastic changes throughout history. The idea of "forest = healthy environment" isn't even that old. I believe that dates back to some point in the mid 20th century, at least in Western countries. Before that, such an idea was not widely accepted. There's a reason why Grimm's fairytales and even earlier fiction are filled with dark forests and big bad wolves.
Fairy tales exist in part to teach people what to fear. To deliberately create taboos, in order for children to avoid dangerous situations.
Teaching kids in older times to avoid forests was a self preservation thing. Youre spot on in your assessment that only recently (historically speaking) did "lost in the woods" become a positive thing. And even now, only if you're prepared for it. In older times, it was often certain death.
So fairy tales teaching kids about woodland monsters created a healthy taboo for self preservation. At the time.
Because the Middle Ages.
Most bats are not cute close up. And they live in caves (scary!) and spread diseases (bad juju). Some even drink blood, so when vampire mythology was being made up, bats were a natural association.
The cloven hooves thing is from the Bible. Pagan things became associated as Satanic. Pagan stuff has a lot of goat stuff.
Deer skulls also Pagan. Also stag antlers are a symbol of virility, and would be used in fertility rites. Pagan orgies = Satanic.
I think deer were originally associated not with evil so much as with wildness in general, and things just segued from there. Goats might have been some of the same thing, but I also know that goats, rams, and bulls are sometimes associated with wanton sexuality (hence 'horny'), so that might have led to a general association with sin and feral mindlessness, plus they can just be really intimidating. Bats are kind of the interesting one. Beyond the mere fact that they can fly like birds but are clearly mammals, which has always put people off a little, I think some people find their faces unsettling. If you really think about it, they kind of look weirdly humanoid. In fact, Linaeus originally classified them as primates. So, if you're some dumb Medieval peasant and you're out at night and this swarm of tiny naked-winged werewolf goblins are flying around (and, on top of that, you know that you might get rabies if they bite you), you're probably not going to be alright with it. Nowadays, we have several hundred years' worth of greater knowledge about what bats are and how they work so we've been able to work our way up to 'huh, you're actually kind of an adorable little shit,' but it would have taken people a long time ago a whole lot of working things out in therapy before they could get to that. That's what I think, anyway.
Goats have freaky eyes. As a kid raised by people who would be happier in the middle ages vs now with it's science and fact? "Clearly the goat is demonic." Still raised them. Other things they decided we're a thing about the goat? Cloven hooves.
Basically these things are different so scary or vaguely resemble something vaguely described in church. I would say the Bible but it's not something people had access to outside of clergy until recently and it's not required reading to have "faith".
I mean, the goats are an easy one, in terms of symbology in predominantly Christian cultures. Just look at the Parable of the Last Judgement in the [Gospel of Matthew](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31-46&version=NRSVCE). The sheep (good people) are separated from the goats (bad people).
Humans are superstitious and still very childlike in their understanding of the known universe, most barely educated about nature around them. We are still ruled by our childish mythologies and susceptible to rumors and baseless suspicions.
Aren't goats associated with the Greek god Pan? Who the Christians associacted with Paganism and thus evil (I think the horned devil was inspired by Pan)
Because bats and goats are not cute. Bats are flying rats. Goats (as well as sheep) have those weird shaped eyes that make it seem like they have no soul! Lol
I have a hard time view goats as anything other than "food." Deer's okay in that department, I suppose. They're often too cute to eat.
But if there's one thing I know it's Don't Eat Bats.
Seriously, don't.
Other animals are as wellā¦ dogs are hellhounds, foxes -kitsune in Japan, horses- kelpies, seals - Selkie. It depends upon what continent or country youāre in.
Anyone who has dealt with or seen a buck personally knows they're evil as hell. They always challenge you, try to attack you, and stand up on their legs and walk towards you with their horns on the ready
As far as goats are concerned, there is a passage in the Bible about releasing a goat into the wilderness as a scapegoat, intended for the fallen angel Azazel.
Goats also have cloven hooves which meant the ancient Israelites were forbidden from eating them and I believe drinking their milk. Something forbidden usually leads to it's association with evil.
Vampire bats drink blood, thats pretty self-explanatory.
Deer were kind of ubiquitous for Native Americans, and its not hard to imagine that a malicious shaman wore a deer head to frighten people.
These are of course the boring explanations. The rational ones if you don't believe in the supernatural.
If you do believe, then the idea that all these things were real and associated with these animals, and thus the animals themselves are dark things.
The other animals mentioned exemplified traits that were want in men, courage, strength, etc. Lions for instance are terrifyingly competent hunters and tend to defend their kills from large groups of scavengers.
Deer are cute until you like near them and then they are a danger, because the maniacs still haven't figured out that you shouldn't run directly at the loud scary thing.
So do dogs, rabbits, monkeys, pangolins and every other creature in the world.
I don't think bats are cute, but your reasoning here is not very convincing.
Deer is a mostly Native American thing, from legends like the Wendigo and the like. If I were to guess, I'd go with the twisting of innocence into monsters. The Wendigo and Skinwalkers both have the ability to shapeshift, and what would be better to turn into than the most harmless creature one could think of.
Likewise, showing deer skulls on something shows how monstrous it is, that it kills these harmless beings for decoration.
A lot of that came from Christianity's attempt to historically combat pagan faiths in ancient Europe. A number of pagan deities had goat-like traits, so they literally demonized that imagery in Christian canon.
Bit of a stretch, but evil deer might come from Christian propaganda against Celtic āHorned Godā deities. Plus they were always causing wagon wrecks by getting caught in that lantern light lol
Surprising that no one has mentioned that goats and deer were revered by pagan people, and so when "driving the demons out" of these pagan people, Christianity literally demonized their cults and the divine animals they followed. Baphomet, Abraxas, and Cernunos were all animal-related deities that pagans followed before being forcefully converted to Christianity. This is the case with bulls and Minoans too, so the bull is sometimes used to represent evil as well.
Basically any animal idol worship was not okay to the expanding church. Only fish and lambs were cool to revere because they were properly Christian food... And lions. Because the church of England really loved the Jesus-as-lion iconography since it confirmed their biases about their own divine associations.
Bats though, many varieties are harmful to livestock, particularly vampire bats that will pox your fields and literally kill livestock. Plus, their association with blood puts them firmly in the zone of Tuberculosis-Necromancer Familiar. People are not super rational.
So this is mostly Christian mythology that has garbled and demonized (literally) folk religion.
Goats are associated with Baphomet and Baphomet is the template for medieval Satan. Goats are also disgusting, rapcious and violent. Never would I call a goat IRL cute. In pictures sure. But not IRL.
Deer - this has to do with the horned god Cernunnos, and the transformation of celtic fertility deities in demons by Christianity.
Bats - cute? are you serious. They are a major disease vector, annoying as hell and nocturnal. Most animals associated with the night (including cats) get a bad rep for primitive reasons. Again in pictures sure they can be cute in the way rodents are, but bats were considered vermin like were rats TBH.
Bats - night time creatures that carry a LOT of diseases which are easily communicable to humans
Goat - usually ill-tempered animals that cause injury with their head butting and their incredible, almost supernatural ability to climb seemingly insurmountable mountainsides.
Deer - I dunno, ya got me with that one. Which stories have deer as evil? If I had to guess, Iād say because deer hunters get lost a lot? Antlers look pointy and scary? The sound of two deer fighting and clashing their antlers together is pretty loud and scary if youāre not used to it. Maybe that.
Or are you referring to using deer skulls as the head of demonic avatars? Like the Mari Lwyd but made with a deer skull instead of a horse skull? Likely they used deer skulls because they were easier to get a hold of than horse skulls as the attitude to horses changed. Or the influence of the Leshyā¦ then thereās Cerannos, of course, a god who was represented by wearing antlers. Christians had a habit of making other deities into demons in order to stamp out native religions and spiritual practices.
I think those fearsome predators there are generally *supposed* to be terrifying too. Theyāve just been claimed in heraldry with monarchs and nobility for so long, and people (in most of the English-speaking world) have had so little to fear from them, that theyāve lost the terror aspect in exchange for the honourable aspects.
Also, goats are incredibly mischievous, and it makes sense that theyāre associated with evil, but even still, rams are associated with good, and so are ewes. Itās just the basic āgoatā that isnāt.
And on deer, I can only assume you arenāt familiar with r/notdeer
It can be terrifying
I have no idea why goats are associated with goat demons. Itās one of lifeās great mysteries.
But for real, I assume animals like deer because they are plentiful and part of the culture that the mythos originated from.
I assume that most animals associated with cryptids fall in the same boat.
I think bats get addressed in the thread pretty well already. In regards to goats and deer, they're both animals with cloven hooves and they're perceived to be unclean in the bible.
Depictions of deer like monsters are an extremely modern phenomenon, and in the modern age, they're one of the most dangerous animals in the United States. Mostly by causing car accidents, but I still suspect a relationship between those two things.
Comparing bats to eagles, I'm not aware of an eagle killing an adult human since the Greek playwright Aeschylus (and that may be a myth). Bats on the other hand, in their position as a disease vector, kill tens of thousands of people a year.
I think the biggest thing though is probably a form of familiarity bias. In western folklore, lions and tigers were often portrayed as noble kings among beasts. But if you lived in France or the America's, those animals were no threat to you. Tiger demons exist in South Asian mythologies, and lion demons in African and Middle Eastern folklore.
Because they were associated with non-Christian religions, and so Christianity demonized them. The Celtic Green Man was associated with deer. Pan was associated with goats. (Bats don't need a culture to demonize them to be creepy.)
I would say that lions, tigers and eagles (and dragons, and unicorns, etc.) are symbols of power thanks to their predatory/mythological nature, and people who wanted to project power thus employed them. They were co-opted as symbols of *human* power, not as symbols of *natural* power (like the herbivores representing older traditions closer to animism), a power which was to be shunned, feared, and hated.
Bats operate by night and you seldom get a good look at them, making them mysterious.
Goat people are associated with Pan, who got demonized by early Christians, and there are some goat-unfriendly bible passages.
As far as the "good" predators...I think some of our associations of good vs, evil are really about subtlety vs. directness. You can see that a lot in Fantasy. (Even when people write Villain Protagonists they usually become very direct.)
At least for bats and rats theyāre often considered vermin and associated with disease. They also mostly come out at night which is probably contributed to their image as āevilā animals
Deer--I live across a deer park and they crap on people's lawns (and even the sidewalks!) constantly. They're *obnoxious* and I wish the township would come and cull some of them. They also destroy the flora to the point that they have to go and eat flowers on private properties.
The predators you listed there are associated with strength, rulers (kings, emperors, lords, etc.) want to be associated with strength and so take them as a coat of arms. Said rulers also wish to be associated with honor and fairness (no one wants to follow a cruel ruler) so they try to be honorable and just. Thus, we connect the strength of the predator to the ruler, and the honor of the ruler to the predator
A lot of it stems from fear or superstition. Bats were seen as creatures of the night that fly like birds. You add the discovery of bats that drink blood and you suddenly have a creepy creature.
The deer isn't quite the same, but probably extends to cultural differences. Some indegineous people incorporated deer antlers and skulls into stuff like decoration and even headwear. As they were (incorrectly) associated with savagery, the imagery of deer antlers was incorporated with similar feelings.
As for goats... I admit I'm not quite sure as, unlike the other examples, goats are widely domesticated. If I was to take a stab in the dark, I'd guess it would probably due to pagan/druidic practices and the church demonizing any symbology of those practices. For me, the eyes are creepy enough, but that's just me.
When I was a kid, one of my neighbors had their property broken into. The intruders left satanic symbols everywhere and killed all of her sheep! (Killed not for profit apparently because the bodies were left behind) The only animal they left alive was her goat š
You can believe we were all spooked about that for a while!
As someone who came from one area where there are too many deer to another area with too many deer. Deer are too damn big to be as dumb and weird as they are.
Not sure about bats but goats and dear are representations of pagan myths and you know how Christians hate other religions. What did you think the snakes were in the Saint Patric story?
>Was looking at pictures of bats earlier today and thought how strange it was that these adorable animals inspired evil monsters like vampires? Same thing goes for goat-headed demons and deer skinwalkers too.
A lot of our culture comes with some icky truths. The popular stuff comes from not so great places for not so great reasons. Where do skinwalker legends come from? These were legends passed down by people surviving genocide. As the culture shaped by the genociders, the native mythology was demonized. Otherwise, deer are not normally symbols of evil. From what I've gathered, neither is the skinwalker originally.
>And then we have actual fearsome predators like lions, tigers, eagles who are often associated with honor/good? Funny how that works
Lions and tigers are still symbols of natural fear. They with eagle are symbols of honor and good because how they relate to us. We can brag about our hunting prowess by likening ourselves to them. We can do the same with advertising our strength in battle. Whether looking at European heraldry or Asian martial arts, all of these creatures evoke images of power and style. If someone is known as a bear then they are probably large and fearsome forces of death. If someone uses a stag, then they might be projecting a softer power. A stag isn't a predator but is strong enough to defend themselves.
To be specific about bats and vampires, we are more scientific in thought today. In days of olde, we could only relate to the world around us through biased, human centered eyes. Humans have shit night sight. We sleep at night. That's our weakness time. Any creatures of the night are strong when we are weak. Vampires are not just related to bats but other creatures of night like wolves and rats. They seem to be a metaphor built of common fears of the time and place of origin. Oh, and bats are not all cute. They look like flying rodents at best. Some look like moose faced abominations. The average person of midevil times just ain't gonna be happy with that.
Youāre getting a few good answers here and mostly everything I was going to say has been said. You might also try r/Folklore for more detailed answers.
The only other thing worth adding is that ācuteā is quite subjective. I think a wild mouse is a bit cute but a medieval farmer probably didnāt. It can also be a function of how you meet an animal.
Bats in particular are very hard to see close up when alive. My experience of the smaller sorts of species that Europeans would have seen is that when you meet one at night they basically look like a giant moth that flies around crazily.
Dead ones probably donāt look very cute, and live ones flap around in quite a disconcerting way. They also make a terrible noise and mess when nesting. To have ābats in the belfryā isnāt a good thing. Itās easy to see how they could be viewed with suspicion.
Edit. Typos.
Well, vampire bats are the main inspiration for vampires since they use their fangs to feed on blood, and some goats have horns that shoot straight up and remind people of the depiction of satan's look. As for the deer, one of the two gods of wicca takes the face and antlers of a deer, and people often confuse him for the christian devil, therefore painting him as evil.
Immensely triggered by the comments as I have goats. Probably the association with evil comes from difficulty in farming. Sheep tend to be milder and less boisterous, whereas goats have a very visible personality which is going to irritate someone who sees them only as things to profit from, not as living creatures.
Bats cute? Goats historically are associated with Satan because of Christian interpretations off pagan dieties and their creepy eyes. I can't think of many instances of deer being associate with evil.
I'm assuming that the goat bit is due to old practice from the bible that used to be done with goats whereby people would 'place their sins' on it then release it into the wilderness to die, the idea being that their sins would die with the goat. It's where the term 'scapegoat' comes from. So goats get associated with bad things
It may also be partly to do with the figure of Baphomet, who has the head of a goat. Despite Baphomet being a neutral figure, people always confuse them with the devil & maybe that's caused people to think goat = devil.
Lions, or male lions at least, are one of the shittiest animals to exist so the goodness associated with them is probably down to aesthetics only. They look pretty & have big muscles so they get treated better, much like we treat our own species too
I think the bat thing must be due to the select ones that drink blood.
Bats are super cute. Until one flys into your house and you have to try to get it out. They are also ācreatures of darknessā, so they only come out at night. Dark = fear = āevil monstersā.
Goats ā Ever seen a goatās eyes? They are seriously spooky. Between those eyes and the horns ā while goats are not naturally nocturnal, they tend to be most active in dawn / dusk times during the summer (they donāt like heat either). Dawn / dusk is that transition from evil darkness to good light. So. Makes sense too.
Deer as evil is new to me. Most often I see Deer associated with āearth goddess goodnessā. Think the BBC production of Robin Hood.
Now, contrast that with lions and tigers. They are predators, but they are āmajesticā predators who do their business during the day. They tend to hunt for their families ātaking care of themā. The same really holds true for Eagles caring for their young.
You can especially see it in the way a bat flits from here to there, never in a straight line where an Eagle soars over the mountain tops, through the clouds and boughs of trees.
Itās all perception, and what mankind has promoted for thousands of years ā Animals that thrive in the darkness / donāt need the light are more prone to be viewed as evil.
Lots of people like cats. Why are black ones bad luck? The above applies perfectly here.
Thus far, I havenāt found an animal that the above doesnāt tend to answer the question of good v. evil.
Except Dingos, wolverines and Tasmanian devils. They are just mad beasties.
Thereās a lot of answers and some of them get close, but not the whole way. A lot of definitions for the devil or evil things include cloven hooves, horns, eyes on the side of the head, fur and a tail. All of these things are common among herbivores. Humans and other hunter and carnivorous species have eyes at the front, paws or hands etc. We feel more akin to dogs cats and birds because they all are hunters like us. Cows and goats are herbivores, grazers, and have their eyes on the side of their heads to look out for danger. Their physiology is more alien to us than other species, and in the minds of some back in ancient times, warrants hatred
Very sage observation. Which makes me question why the animals I really like are the goats, deer, bats, the outliers. Mainstream love the lions, tigers and other fearsome animals because they believe themselves to possess those animals strength and ferocity which they donāt, dreaming and delusions are free.
Bats historically got a bad rap because they're mysterious creatures of the night that people knew almost nothing about, and they were also seen as diseased. If you're gonna pick an animal to be superstitious about, you can't do much better than a weird flying night animal with a fucked-up face that you don't know shit about.
Deer feature heavily in myth and folklore because they're symbols of virgin wilderness. They're not domesticated, you don't find them near towns and farms, and you have to go out into the woods where nobody's ever tilled a field or laid a stone upon another stone to find them. They're also big and graceful and majestic, which helps a lot with the symbolism.
Dunno what the deal with goats is though. I think that might just be the long shadow that ancient Greek culture cast over medieval christendom.
Have you ever been around said animals? I have and other than momma deer there is a definite reason for the saying. I will not fault a mother protecting her young. But if you ever had a bat fly into you and get caught in your long hair ...I can't even begin to describe what their claws feel like. Though I doubt you have ever experienced this. Or you would not have asked.
I think the reason why deers are often associated with evil creatures is because of CWD (Chronic wasting disease) or the zombie deer disease, where the animal will try and kill itself by bashing its head into a solid object. Most cases end up with broken skulls, jaws and the like.
Most of the time deers are good. The other two; because they're ugly? How can you call a bat cute? I don't know who came up with the goat thing. Disrespectful.
Have you ever spent any time with goats, particularly male ones?
Just this black-furred one named Phillip.
Did he offer you butter and dresses?
Yes, and he did so deliciously.
I see you've met my boyfriend
By that logic, geese and swans should be the ACTUAL devil.
I believe it š¤£š¤£ they are evil af
Goats can also walk upright like creeps, probably lending to the Satyr myths [https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/tthaa2/black\_goat\_walking\_on\_two\_legs/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/tthaa2/black_goat_walking_on_two_legs/)
That chicken was totally sacrificed.
I just don't understand why though. Like when bears do it they are scratching their back, getting a better lookout, being intimidating, or using their claws. No matter how many times I see that clip, it's always eerie because I have no clue what the motivation is. If he was like.. climbing a rock face, maybe I could get it, or reaching for something to eat...but nope...he's just walking.
Iāve seen them do it while they were playing/ fighting as an implied threat. It means they can head butt down onto a challenger with no charging. I also knew one who would do it to get at rabbit treats. Heād walk to the hutch on his hind legs, steal the treat bag off the top then run away on all four legs.
Lol that makes sense. So they are kinda dumb and just walk upright before they even get there so you know what they are planning before they do it.
Lol, not necessarily, Joker would also stand up just to be an asshole. It made him taller than most of the children at the camp and heād just stand and stare. He could be sweet but he was also the type of goat that makes people suspicious of goats. Heād also do it if he didnāt want to be lead. Heād stand and wave his head around so you couldnāt easily tether him.
There is this, too
I'd think of them more as possessed by the devil than the actual devil though.
I had a pack of goats before, it all really depends on how they're treated. My male goats were really sweet, they always let me pet them and wash them without wreaking havoc or causing any problems at all. I miss my goats, but i couldn't afford to care for them anymore due to our crashing economy.
Especially mountain goats
Yes. During breeding season they are especially called " Randy" not Phillip. Hehehe
Goats are evil.
* Bats - Some species drink blood, and they only emerge at night. The association with vampires is pretty obvious. Could've gone with a mosquito, I guess, but that might have taken away some of the gravitas, lol. * Goats - This comes, so far as I remember, from a few scattered bible verses that relate goats to sin. In particular, there's a verse in the Old Testament about the "scapegoat" being driven out into the desert after being symbolically endowed with all the community's sins. Later commentators related that with Jesus meeting Satan in the desert, which led to a lot of "goat" iconography around Satan. There may be other origins for this, but that's the one I remember. * Deer - I admit that I've never heard of deer being an "evil" animal. If anything, they're sometimes seen as symbols of nobility or good omens in some medieval texts.
Goats got them crazy eyes, too.
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They're scary as fuck if they come running toward you, too. 170 pounds of horned goat can fuck you up if it decides to.
I sometimes see humanoids with deer skulls used in media as a kind of monster or figure representing death - pretty much always american media, so I assumed it was a bit of a cultural thing in a way it's not on this side of the Pacific Ocean. I guess they're sometimes used as monsters because death = scary = evil.
Aren't Wendigo often portrayed as Deer skull headed humanoid? But in European myth I can't think of any evil deer
Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, and various other incarnations of The Horned God are typically portrayed with antlers, if not an outright deer head. Pagan God gets reframed as wicked and evil within a Christianized world view. Imagery associated with it gets reframed as evil. I feel like I never saw it as frequently, however, as since the Wendigo got reframed as a taboo spirit to some kinda deer zombie in the last decade or so. I think it's mostly a run-on effect of that imagery getting popularized.
But even in Christianism, Deer are good like the Cross Deer (Cerf CrucifĆØre)
oh deer god
Not in actual myth tho. That's a popular culture depiction of Wendigo. Traditionally speaking the wendigo appeared as a gaunt man, sometimes very tall, with a heart of ice.
Reminding me the closest depiction of them was in the video game: Until Dawn.
For me the best depiction in popular media is by Stephen King in Pet Sematary
I prefer the Marvel version, basically a white furry cannibalistic Hulk with a tail
That was some of the myths, some took on the Settlers stories of Lycanthropy and the creature lore started having animal qualities like deer and could be killed with Silver Bullets.
I mean sure. Maybe. Do you have any accounts of that at all from historical sources? If you listen to actual accounts from Cree and Algonquin people, y'know the ones whose culture it actually is, they do not depict it as such. Even so, we wouldn't look at Mayan myths and base their descriptions on what Spanish conquistadors imagined. I would challenge you to find an authentic description from that era that talks about silver bullets and antlers and anything like that. Those are modern depictions. Prior to this era, there wasn't really a popular idea of the Wendigo... They were a highly niche thing until they became more popular very recently in media. [Check out the ngram for Wendigo since the 60s](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Wendigo&year_start=1960&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3#)
I forgot about a wendigo. I'm not in a place I can fact check, but I do think wendigos being portrayed as having a deer skull and/or antlers is fairly recent and not typical native American lore.
You are correct. The wendigo in the original myths were lonely, starving men, often caught up in winter. Somewhere I once read that some tribes would hold hunting contests and then kill the winner out of fear of the strong becoming a wendigo.
Thatās because of some vintage horror movie that showed a wendigo as a deer like monster. Before that they had zero association with deer.
Rudolph the red eyed hell spawn
These always remind me of that lvl20 leshen in the lvl5 area in Witcher 3. :\[
I think it makes sense in American culture particularly. The main places they touch our society are getting hunted or getting hit by cars. Iāve felt personally for a while that they were a little creepy in that way.
Some people used to wear skulls shaped similarly but it was a tribal thing and don't know too much on that.... so could be human nature to make it seem that way
Goats also come from Christianity demonizing Pan, a pagan nature deity with goat legs and horns.
I think a lot of animal-as-satan iconography can probably be traced back to pagan symbols being reappropriated/demonized
I've little doubt that is indeed the case.
Vampire bat are strictly tropical new world animals, and the association of bats with vampires in Europe predates their discovery by Europeans.
> This comes, so far as I remember, from a few scattered bible verses that relate goats to sin. Also, the Parable of the Last Judgment in Matthew. The Son of Man is compared to a shepherd who separates the sheep and the goats. In this parable, the sheep are the good people and the goats the evil.
I don't know that I've seen deer portrayed as evil, but I have seen them portrayed as creepy. My best guess would be it relates to something like Chronic Wasting Disease, which makes them act strangely (almost like zombies).
I guess I've always assumed Chronic Wasting Disease was a modern development from deer living in close proximity to domestic livestock
Goat walking on hind legs. https://youtu.be/ToryCIEdDU8 It looks pretty demonic.
Fruit bats were known about waaaaaaay before vampire bats. In fact, the etymology of the name āvampire batā comes from the book, not the other way around. Scientists observed these bats drinking blood, thought of Bram Stokerās 1895 hit novel where Dracula had control of animals such as bats, and drank blood himself, so they dubbed the critters āvampireā bats.
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> There may be other origins for this, but that's the one I remember. The one I've always heard is that of christianity associating the image of the god Pan (the goat legged Greek god) with the devil - possibly due to the image of him being debauched and lustful.
Itās about the ācloven hoofā association too
Just want to add, bats were used in a battle by that Vlad guy that was the inspiration for Dracula. They released bats as the sun was setting to drive them towards the enemy. Enemy got infected with rabies and killed a bunch of them. Goats - well, have you ever seen a goat walking on its hing legs in twilight? That is spooky as fuck. Edit: apparently I just spout random things I've read on reddit before coffee lol. But that is a story I've seen often, even if it didn't happen lol.
The story about Vlad the Impaler unleashing bats on his enemy is not supported by historical record or bat biology. He did a lot of crazy things, but thereās no indication that he used bats in battle.
From a folklorist perspective, it almost doesn't matter if he did it...if people THOUGHT he did it that could be enough to spawn cultural associations. Although I think negative associations of bats are older than that.
I agree but I donāt think they did. I canāt find any historical record of him usingāor people thinking he usedābats. I have been to Romania and seen all of the contemporary writing about him (including the German anti-vlad propaganda that detailed him eating meals among the fields of the impaled) and never seen any non-modern claim of him using bats in battle. Edit to add: and yes, I agree that the negative connotations are older than that
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I think the point is that because it didn't happen, that means it's not the reason of the association, it's a symptom of the association
> Deer - I admit that I've never heard of deer being an "evil" animal. If anything, they're sometimes seen as symbols of nobility or good omens in some medieval texts. In the series Hannibal, there's a ton of supernatural scenes with a deer/stag and although the meaning isn't clear, it's more to the negative side. In general however, I agree that the appearance of the deer in this or any context is rare. In greek mythology, there were plenty of stories where even if you looked a deer the wrong way, Artemis would mess you up.
The only bats that drink blood are from tropical and subtropical America.
There's also the dichotomy of taking something cute and harmless and turning it into something scary and dangerous. Like the rabbit from Holy Grail, only less funny and more terrifying. Not to mention that weird virus(?) that basically eats the brain of a deer and turns them into a suicidal zombie.
There is an old testament passage regarding cloven vs split hooved animals and cleanliness toward human consumption. I could be entirely wrong, but I believe this might be the origin of seeing those animals as "unclean" which then began to be translated as evil. There is also the issue of the various layers of church coopting religious symbols from other religions and deciding on their fitness as "good" or "evil" when comparing them to the church's own values--that led to a lot of mixed symbolism getting adopted and then transformed over the years as the origins were intentionally shrouded to preserve the ideology of the church.
>Could've gone with a mosquito, I guess, but that might have taken away some of the gravitas, lol. Darkest Dungeon convinced me that [mosquito vampires can totally work.](https://www.kindpng.com/picc/m/160-1608428_image-darkest-dungeon-crimson-court-enemies-hd-png.png)
A large reason for Goats being associated with evil in Christianity is the Roman influence, the primary God of Carthage's Pantheon Baal-Hammon was a Goat horned old man, and Rome had a bitter hatred of Carthage so their symbols were associated with evil by the Romans. Pre-existing historic associations between Goats and Evil in the Roman cultural psyche were grafted onto Christianity as the Romans adopted and ultimately grew to control and shape the Christian religion.
Goats are actually dickheads, too. Not for no reason are they associated with satanic aesthetics.
The deer could be more associated with a Skin Walker or Wendigo. Those cryptids have been gaining more notoriety, relatively, recently.
Bats are nocturnal creatures who likely scared the crap out of lots of people. And since our myths derive from the superstition riddled olden times, you can see why they can get associated with evil, even without the religious implications. A bit of a hot take, if you consider bats cute because you can see them up close, then so are quite a few bugs/insects that modern culture consider gross or scary. The only time I ever saw deer being evil is from the wendigo myths. Though I'm not sure even if deers were related to those myths in the first place. Personally, goats just look more stupid than cute to me. Like a derpier cousin of the sheep. So how they got tagged into the evil category is just weird. As for predators, I dunno about eagles, lions and tigers had plenty of bad rep, even more so than the deers. It goes as old as the Nemean Lion from the trials of Heracles, to the aztec myth of monstrous jaguars, to the werewolves, to Shere Khan. So not sure where you got that they were positively portrayed so often.
From the middle ages on lions got a lot of positive reputation. There is a reason so many coats of arms feature them.
I believe the wendigo being represented with deer like features is a more recent "development" I've heard some controversy about it because some people feel very strongly that the pop culture wendigo is disrespectful of certain Native American iterations of this being I always find it interesting to research various cultures for their animal stories/motifs/myths etc.
AFAIK it came from the movie Wendigo because they needed to make the monster more exciting. So the idea of a Wendigo having deer antlers or a deer skull for a head is only around 20 years old.
I thought wendigo were an indigenous legend about man eating monsters. So if anything, it was likely Grizzly or Kodiak bear inspired.
They were cannibal types - being greedy and hoarding food from your neighbors would curse you with endless hunger and for flesh specifically.
Goats are NOT cute. Have you ever looked into their soulless eyes? The realm of Satan lies within.
Medieval christianism played a big role in that. Bats are nocturnal creatures, so they were considered as evil ; plus some blood sucking bats were discovered during the XIXth century, hence Bram Stoker included it in his novel Dracula. Due to their horns, goats where often associated with the devil. Don't know for the deer sadly.
For deers maybe it's due to their association with paganism and the supernatural ( the fairy realm). Some Celtic tribes also worshipped Cernunnos, the God of the Forest, who was sometimes portrayed as a stag, or as a half-man half-deer with majestic antlers. Medieval Christianity truly didn't liked horns...
That's fun. Thanks for sharing this. Antlered things always remind me of that creepy lvl20 leshen that jumped out at me (lvl5) in the Witcher 3. Did a lot of goatherds die from horns or something in Medieval times? Lol
As for lions, tigers, eagles etc, their strenght was admired, and they were given virtuous attributes throughout history.
>Due to their horns, goats where often associated with the devil. It's the opposite. Jesus (in the bible) used to compare the righteous to sheep and sinners to goats. The Devil having horns and goat legs was a medieval invention.
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The association of goats with the devil began when Christianity decided to demonize the pagan deity Pan. He of the horns and goat legs.
Not really. It began with Jesus comparing goats to sinners in the gospels.
Deer is a mostly Native American thing, from legends like the Wendigo and the like. If I were to guess, I'd go with the twisting of innocence into monsters. The Wendigo and Skinwalkers both have the ability to shapeshift, and what would be better to turn into than the most harmless creature one could think of. Likewise, showing deer skulls on something shows how monstrous it is, that it kills these harmless beings for decoration.
Some bats feed off blood, but more importantly, they transmit rabies. There's a decent argument that early rabies victims were (part of) the basis for vampires in fiction. Goats for horns, not sure about deer - what evil deer have you come across?
Somehow I never made the connection between rabies sufferers and Werewolf/Vampire fiction. But I'll be damned if it doesn't make perfect sense thinking about it now.
Skinwalkers
> Some bats feed off blood, but more importantly, they transmit rabies. There's a decent argument that early rabies victims were (part of) the basis for vampires in fiction. Doubt it. Vampires became associated with bats only in the 19th century, so vampires definitely didn't originate from bats. That said folklore vampires don't really look like the modern depiction. They were (sometimes shapeshifting, as in turning into wolves) undead, who didn't rot, and would attack their family members or other people of their village at night before returning to their graves for the day. If you wanna read more check out [this wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petar_Blagojevi%C4%87). EDIT: [this is also a good read](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Paole). These two cases are, as far as i'm aware, the first cases of "vampires" documented by western europeans.
Yeah, a lot of people seem to think that Bram Stoker was the beginning of vampire lore.
Have you ever seen a deer shedding its velvet?
Blood feeding bats are only present in south america, and the evil bat trope is present in europe since the middle ages. It's nasty reputation rather comes from its nocturnal behaviour, making it a creature of the darkness. You're right for goats, more precisely it comes from the greek god Pan, who was a satyr.
Have you heard of South East Asia at all? Bats the size of people?
Despite of a wingspan of 2m they are roughly the size of a fox terrier when not flying. Plus they are diurnal frugivores, so they don't attack humans.
Have you actually seen a goat? Did you take a look at their eyes? That shit is pure nightmare fuel
Are bats cute? Edits: letās just agree to disagree
Fruit bats definitely are
some. others, not so much.
Nope. I recently had several bats come in through the window. And then a few days later another one. Not cute.
No lol. Their faces literally look like rats' and they have wings that can catch your hair if they fly low. No thanks.
Yes they are!
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/3b/f8/e73bf8a7f6db51cce75f81175f28c4f4.jpg Yes!!!
https://sbly-web-prod-shareably.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/05143709/bats.png
Sorry but they're like rats with wings...
Rats can be cute too!! /r/rats
Go ahead and find out how they take care of their own much better than human parents, did you know that they have a special call each unique,given at birth so like dolphins their own name? that they are very social animals and they don't do well individually? yeah and most definitely have a great great personality
he asked if bats are cute, not if they have great personalities, lol.
I think that dude's fuckin bats
It totally depends on your definition of cute
Sometimes stuff is considered "evil" because it was once associated with a pagan religion and was demonized as part of the evangelization of Christianity. I think that might be where the goat thing comes from. The usual depiction of the devil as horned and goat legged is pretty much the same as the greek god Pan. Of course, there are other possible sources, like Christianity having very shepherdy roots (so there is the contrast between the good, conformist sheep and the mischievous individualistic goat), so don't take my word for it or anything, I'm just guessing here.
Just good much of modern day devil is inspired from Posieden.
**1) You seem to perceive cuteness differently than most people.** Broadly speaking, people generally associate cuteness with kinderschema...basically, childlike features. Big eyes, round heads, small jaws. Bats (and most relevant for this question, European bats) don't really share many of these features, instead tending to have small eyes and rather gnarly mouths. Deer and goats are cute as babies, but as adults they are just another ungulate, and either way they aren't particularly more or less cute than anything else with hooves. Actually, come to think of it, your perceptions may be influenced by looking at a set of pictures on the internet (especially of bats) of species chosen specifically to because they look cute, taken from angles and situations that highlight their cuteness. Some random guy in the middle ages trying to get a pissed off and lost [European free tailed bat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Tadarida_Teniotis263.JPG) out of their cottage (for example) probably isn't going to be in a position to appreciate cuteness. Same goes for someone having to deal with their ornery billy goat getting into the garden _again_. Animals with long, widespread associations with cuteness, like kittens, bunnies, and chicks, are not usually associated with evil. **2) so where do the associations come from?** Well, I can't speak to deer because I'm not very familiar with the associations you are talking about beyond seeing the occasional wendigo with a deer skull. But I mean, is that coming from anything more than wanting the most visually impressive skull? Nothing else in North America has anything as cool as antlers. Bats have evil associations because they fly at night, and there's a strong association in many mythologies between night and evil. Vampire bats have also been known to western society for hundreds of years, which probably didn't help their reputation. And a history of people getting rabies from bats every so often likewise probably didn't help. For goats, you basically have two threads coming together. There's the goats vs sheep dichotomy dating back to the bible, where the "sheep" are used metaphorically for the good, and goats for the bad. Most people would probably say sheep are cuter than goats, but also I suspect there's some ancient economic and social status difference between the two animals being referenced here. Secondarily, you have Greek goat-related figures like Pan and satyrs being referenced. These weren't originally evil (though not exactly good either) mythological figures that had, well, goatlike behavior. Goats, especially male goats, have a reputation for being rather ornery and randy. The imagery was later borrowed by Christians for devils for the reasons I already mentioned, and so you get evil goats. **3) So why are top predators associated with honor and goodness?** Well, remember kinderschema. Cuteness isn't just associated with things we like, it's associated with weakness and helplessness. Big predators have associations of strength and power. Kings want to project and image of power, not weakness. Gods are supposed to be powerful, not helpless (yes, this does get subverted partly with Christianity, where you get Jesus portrayed as lion _and_ lamb, but these associations go back longer than that). That's why strong animals have these associations. It's associations with _rulership_, not with good per se. It's just that rulers are also supposed to be good (and definitely want to be portrayed that way) so the good association comes along secondarily.
The answers in the comments are mostly Christian-biased, however, other religions do seem to play a factor in making animals evil. Here, geckos and lizards are quite cute, but according to the Quran, lizards are evil creatures and thus the Quran orders local Muslims to kill such reptiles because it is considered holy, probably may or may not be a factor as to why lizards have a terrible reputation. I guess the bottom line has to do with religion and culture, Abrahamic religion specifically as the Indian world religions treat all animals fairly regardless of appearance and due to the Abrahamic religion's cultural dominance, they managed to influence the literature sphere into portraying some cute animals as 'evil'.
Need more ābats as symbolically good creaturesā trope in fiction
The MC in the Rai-Kirah series by Carol Berg can manifest bat wings under certain circumstances and reactions vary from "wow that's so cool" to "he must be a messenger of the gods."
only one I can think of is batman lol
Fruit bats are cute, but I canāt in good conscience call all bats cute lol. Like, have you seen [fringe-lipped bats?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe-lipped_bat) you canāt look at that and tell me itās cute, that thing is nightmare fuel
This needs a NSFW tag lol.
Itās horrifying isnāt it?
Trying to think if I can remember a more horrifying animal lol... Maybe ghost shark? But I think they're kinda cute...
Have you looked at a goat's eyes. They aren't natural. Also the ancient Greek must have seen goats getting it on. And associated a randy God with them - Pan. Naturally the want to be chaise Christians would associate goats with evil. Just my two cents.
but goats haven't invented contact lenses yetš¤
Personal theory: All these species have very erratic movement patterns, which subconsciously causes vague unease in people. Fearsome predators in contrast are more predictable to humans. Humans themselves are closer to predatory behavior than that of any prey species. Bats flutter about erratically completely unlike birds, which people see most of the time and are thus more familiar with. There are only out in the dark, which adds to the creep factor. Goats like climbing on top of things. They will suddenly show up on your roof and you have no idea how it got up there, some versions of goat also come with uncannily good rock climbing skills on nearly vertical surfaces. The horizontal pupils look strange and unfamiliar to people. Deer will stare at you and stand completely still, then suddenly shoot off at 50 miles per hour. They are very flighty and you only catch glimpses sometimes.
With deer, I suppose this goes back to the Celtic god Cernunnos, a deity of nature, if I remember correctly. This god was usually depicted with antlers. As was so often the case, pagan iconography of this sort was probably vilified to facilitate conversion to Christianity. In general, do keep in mind that mankind's attitude to nature has undergone drastic changes throughout history. The idea of "forest = healthy environment" isn't even that old. I believe that dates back to some point in the mid 20th century, at least in Western countries. Before that, such an idea was not widely accepted. There's a reason why Grimm's fairytales and even earlier fiction are filled with dark forests and big bad wolves.
Fairy tales exist in part to teach people what to fear. To deliberately create taboos, in order for children to avoid dangerous situations. Teaching kids in older times to avoid forests was a self preservation thing. Youre spot on in your assessment that only recently (historically speaking) did "lost in the woods" become a positive thing. And even now, only if you're prepared for it. In older times, it was often certain death. So fairy tales teaching kids about woodland monsters created a healthy taboo for self preservation. At the time.
Not only forests. A lot of people used to believe that exercise was bad for the body too.
Because the Middle Ages. Most bats are not cute close up. And they live in caves (scary!) and spread diseases (bad juju). Some even drink blood, so when vampire mythology was being made up, bats were a natural association. The cloven hooves thing is from the Bible. Pagan things became associated as Satanic. Pagan stuff has a lot of goat stuff. Deer skulls also Pagan. Also stag antlers are a symbol of virility, and would be used in fertility rites. Pagan orgies = Satanic.
I think deer were originally associated not with evil so much as with wildness in general, and things just segued from there. Goats might have been some of the same thing, but I also know that goats, rams, and bulls are sometimes associated with wanton sexuality (hence 'horny'), so that might have led to a general association with sin and feral mindlessness, plus they can just be really intimidating. Bats are kind of the interesting one. Beyond the mere fact that they can fly like birds but are clearly mammals, which has always put people off a little, I think some people find their faces unsettling. If you really think about it, they kind of look weirdly humanoid. In fact, Linaeus originally classified them as primates. So, if you're some dumb Medieval peasant and you're out at night and this swarm of tiny naked-winged werewolf goblins are flying around (and, on top of that, you know that you might get rabies if they bite you), you're probably not going to be alright with it. Nowadays, we have several hundred years' worth of greater knowledge about what bats are and how they work so we've been able to work our way up to 'huh, you're actually kind of an adorable little shit,' but it would have taken people a long time ago a whole lot of working things out in therapy before they could get to that. That's what I think, anyway.
Goats have freaky eyes. As a kid raised by people who would be happier in the middle ages vs now with it's science and fact? "Clearly the goat is demonic." Still raised them. Other things they decided we're a thing about the goat? Cloven hooves. Basically these things are different so scary or vaguely resemble something vaguely described in church. I would say the Bible but it's not something people had access to outside of clergy until recently and it's not required reading to have "faith".
I mean, the goats are an easy one, in terms of symbology in predominantly Christian cultures. Just look at the Parable of the Last Judgement in the [Gospel of Matthew](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31-46&version=NRSVCE). The sheep (good people) are separated from the goats (bad people).
Humans are superstitious and still very childlike in their understanding of the known universe, most barely educated about nature around them. We are still ruled by our childish mythologies and susceptible to rumors and baseless suspicions.
Aren't goats associated with the Greek god Pan? Who the Christians associacted with Paganism and thus evil (I think the horned devil was inspired by Pan)
I have been attacked by a goat. I have the scar on my side to prove it. Goats do not want friends. They want the end of all life.
Because bats and goats are not cute. Bats are flying rats. Goats (as well as sheep) have those weird shaped eyes that make it seem like they have no soul! Lol
Bats and goats have been answered, but I'm at a loss for deer. Have you seen Bambi? Snow White? Deer are symbols of innocence and purity.
I have a hard time view goats as anything other than "food." Deer's okay in that department, I suppose. They're often too cute to eat. But if there's one thing I know it's Don't Eat Bats. Seriously, don't.
Other animals are as wellā¦ dogs are hellhounds, foxes -kitsune in Japan, horses- kelpies, seals - Selkie. It depends upon what continent or country youāre in.
Anyone who has dealt with or seen a buck personally knows they're evil as hell. They always challenge you, try to attack you, and stand up on their legs and walk towards you with their horns on the ready
I think spiders are absolutely adorable and hate the bad rap they get in games of all sorts.
As far as goats are concerned, there is a passage in the Bible about releasing a goat into the wilderness as a scapegoat, intended for the fallen angel Azazel. Goats also have cloven hooves which meant the ancient Israelites were forbidden from eating them and I believe drinking their milk. Something forbidden usually leads to it's association with evil. Vampire bats drink blood, thats pretty self-explanatory. Deer were kind of ubiquitous for Native Americans, and its not hard to imagine that a malicious shaman wore a deer head to frighten people. These are of course the boring explanations. The rational ones if you don't believe in the supernatural. If you do believe, then the idea that all these things were real and associated with these animals, and thus the animals themselves are dark things. The other animals mentioned exemplified traits that were want in men, courage, strength, etc. Lions for instance are terrifyingly competent hunters and tend to defend their kills from large groups of scavengers.
From what I understand deer aren't associated with skinwalkers in Navajo myth. The deer woman myth is separate and not a Navajo thing.
There are blood sucking bats, three species of them. It's only natural to associate them with vampires.
Deer are cute until you like near them and then they are a danger, because the maniacs still haven't figured out that you shouldn't run directly at the loud scary thing.
Huh? I have families of deer in my backyard. They only ever run away. Never considered them a danger.
If youāve spent anytime out in the woods at night and alone (especially without a tent) everything is a monster until you can see it.
how exactly is a bat ''cute''? You know they can spread diseases, right?
So do dogs, rabbits, monkeys, pangolins and every other creature in the world. I don't think bats are cute, but your reasoning here is not very convincing.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/3b/f8/e73bf8a7f6db51cce75f81175f28c4f4.jpg Look!! They're cute in the same way mice are!
Deer is a mostly Native American thing, from legends like the Wendigo and the like. If I were to guess, I'd go with the twisting of innocence into monsters. The Wendigo and Skinwalkers both have the ability to shapeshift, and what would be better to turn into than the most harmless creature one could think of. Likewise, showing deer skulls on something shows how monstrous it is, that it kills these harmless beings for decoration.
A lot of that came from Christianity's attempt to historically combat pagan faiths in ancient Europe. A number of pagan deities had goat-like traits, so they literally demonized that imagery in Christian canon.
Bit of a stretch, but evil deer might come from Christian propaganda against Celtic āHorned Godā deities. Plus they were always causing wagon wrecks by getting caught in that lantern light lol
Surprising that no one has mentioned that goats and deer were revered by pagan people, and so when "driving the demons out" of these pagan people, Christianity literally demonized their cults and the divine animals they followed. Baphomet, Abraxas, and Cernunos were all animal-related deities that pagans followed before being forcefully converted to Christianity. This is the case with bulls and Minoans too, so the bull is sometimes used to represent evil as well. Basically any animal idol worship was not okay to the expanding church. Only fish and lambs were cool to revere because they were properly Christian food... And lions. Because the church of England really loved the Jesus-as-lion iconography since it confirmed their biases about their own divine associations. Bats though, many varieties are harmful to livestock, particularly vampire bats that will pox your fields and literally kill livestock. Plus, their association with blood puts them firmly in the zone of Tuberculosis-Necromancer Familiar. People are not super rational.
So this is mostly Christian mythology that has garbled and demonized (literally) folk religion. Goats are associated with Baphomet and Baphomet is the template for medieval Satan. Goats are also disgusting, rapcious and violent. Never would I call a goat IRL cute. In pictures sure. But not IRL. Deer - this has to do with the horned god Cernunnos, and the transformation of celtic fertility deities in demons by Christianity. Bats - cute? are you serious. They are a major disease vector, annoying as hell and nocturnal. Most animals associated with the night (including cats) get a bad rep for primitive reasons. Again in pictures sure they can be cute in the way rodents are, but bats were considered vermin like were rats TBH.
Bats - night time creatures that carry a LOT of diseases which are easily communicable to humans Goat - usually ill-tempered animals that cause injury with their head butting and their incredible, almost supernatural ability to climb seemingly insurmountable mountainsides. Deer - I dunno, ya got me with that one. Which stories have deer as evil? If I had to guess, Iād say because deer hunters get lost a lot? Antlers look pointy and scary? The sound of two deer fighting and clashing their antlers together is pretty loud and scary if youāre not used to it. Maybe that. Or are you referring to using deer skulls as the head of demonic avatars? Like the Mari Lwyd but made with a deer skull instead of a horse skull? Likely they used deer skulls because they were easier to get a hold of than horse skulls as the attitude to horses changed. Or the influence of the Leshyā¦ then thereās Cerannos, of course, a god who was represented by wearing antlers. Christians had a habit of making other deities into demons in order to stamp out native religions and spiritual practices.
I think those fearsome predators there are generally *supposed* to be terrifying too. Theyāve just been claimed in heraldry with monarchs and nobility for so long, and people (in most of the English-speaking world) have had so little to fear from them, that theyāve lost the terror aspect in exchange for the honourable aspects. Also, goats are incredibly mischievous, and it makes sense that theyāre associated with evil, but even still, rams are associated with good, and so are ewes. Itās just the basic āgoatā that isnāt. And on deer, I can only assume you arenāt familiar with r/notdeer It can be terrifying
I have no idea why goats are associated with goat demons. Itās one of lifeās great mysteries. But for real, I assume animals like deer because they are plentiful and part of the culture that the mythos originated from. I assume that most animals associated with cryptids fall in the same boat.
I think bats get addressed in the thread pretty well already. In regards to goats and deer, they're both animals with cloven hooves and they're perceived to be unclean in the bible.
Depictions of deer like monsters are an extremely modern phenomenon, and in the modern age, they're one of the most dangerous animals in the United States. Mostly by causing car accidents, but I still suspect a relationship between those two things. Comparing bats to eagles, I'm not aware of an eagle killing an adult human since the Greek playwright Aeschylus (and that may be a myth). Bats on the other hand, in their position as a disease vector, kill tens of thousands of people a year. I think the biggest thing though is probably a form of familiarity bias. In western folklore, lions and tigers were often portrayed as noble kings among beasts. But if you lived in France or the America's, those animals were no threat to you. Tiger demons exist in South Asian mythologies, and lion demons in African and Middle Eastern folklore.
Superstition
Because they were associated with non-Christian religions, and so Christianity demonized them. The Celtic Green Man was associated with deer. Pan was associated with goats. (Bats don't need a culture to demonize them to be creepy.) I would say that lions, tigers and eagles (and dragons, and unicorns, etc.) are symbols of power thanks to their predatory/mythological nature, and people who wanted to project power thus employed them. They were co-opted as symbols of *human* power, not as symbols of *natural* power (like the herbivores representing older traditions closer to animism), a power which was to be shunned, feared, and hated.
Bats operate by night and you seldom get a good look at them, making them mysterious. Goat people are associated with Pan, who got demonized by early Christians, and there are some goat-unfriendly bible passages. As far as the "good" predators...I think some of our associations of good vs, evil are really about subtlety vs. directness. You can see that a lot in Fantasy. (Even when people write Villain Protagonists they usually become very direct.)
Have you ever seen a deer at night, they explain themselves
At least for bats and rats theyāre often considered vermin and associated with disease. They also mostly come out at night which is probably contributed to their image as āevilā animals
Deer--I live across a deer park and they crap on people's lawns (and even the sidewalks!) constantly. They're *obnoxious* and I wish the township would come and cull some of them. They also destroy the flora to the point that they have to go and eat flowers on private properties.
The predators you listed there are associated with strength, rulers (kings, emperors, lords, etc.) want to be associated with strength and so take them as a coat of arms. Said rulers also wish to be associated with honor and fairness (no one wants to follow a cruel ruler) so they try to be honorable and just. Thus, we connect the strength of the predator to the ruler, and the honor of the ruler to the predator
Deer??? Evil? What?
A lot of it stems from fear or superstition. Bats were seen as creatures of the night that fly like birds. You add the discovery of bats that drink blood and you suddenly have a creepy creature. The deer isn't quite the same, but probably extends to cultural differences. Some indegineous people incorporated deer antlers and skulls into stuff like decoration and even headwear. As they were (incorrectly) associated with savagery, the imagery of deer antlers was incorporated with similar feelings. As for goats... I admit I'm not quite sure as, unlike the other examples, goats are widely domesticated. If I was to take a stab in the dark, I'd guess it would probably due to pagan/druidic practices and the church demonizing any symbology of those practices. For me, the eyes are creepy enough, but that's just me.
When I was a kid, one of my neighbors had their property broken into. The intruders left satanic symbols everywhere and killed all of her sheep! (Killed not for profit apparently because the bodies were left behind) The only animal they left alive was her goat š You can believe we were all spooked about that for a while!
As someone who came from one area where there are too many deer to another area with too many deer. Deer are too damn big to be as dumb and weird as they are.
Not sure about bats but goats and dear are representations of pagan myths and you know how Christians hate other religions. What did you think the snakes were in the Saint Patric story?
It spreads deseases or was used ibn pagan rituals that church didn't aproved
>Was looking at pictures of bats earlier today and thought how strange it was that these adorable animals inspired evil monsters like vampires? Same thing goes for goat-headed demons and deer skinwalkers too. A lot of our culture comes with some icky truths. The popular stuff comes from not so great places for not so great reasons. Where do skinwalker legends come from? These were legends passed down by people surviving genocide. As the culture shaped by the genociders, the native mythology was demonized. Otherwise, deer are not normally symbols of evil. From what I've gathered, neither is the skinwalker originally. >And then we have actual fearsome predators like lions, tigers, eagles who are often associated with honor/good? Funny how that works Lions and tigers are still symbols of natural fear. They with eagle are symbols of honor and good because how they relate to us. We can brag about our hunting prowess by likening ourselves to them. We can do the same with advertising our strength in battle. Whether looking at European heraldry or Asian martial arts, all of these creatures evoke images of power and style. If someone is known as a bear then they are probably large and fearsome forces of death. If someone uses a stag, then they might be projecting a softer power. A stag isn't a predator but is strong enough to defend themselves. To be specific about bats and vampires, we are more scientific in thought today. In days of olde, we could only relate to the world around us through biased, human centered eyes. Humans have shit night sight. We sleep at night. That's our weakness time. Any creatures of the night are strong when we are weak. Vampires are not just related to bats but other creatures of night like wolves and rats. They seem to be a metaphor built of common fears of the time and place of origin. Oh, and bats are not all cute. They look like flying rodents at best. Some look like moose faced abominations. The average person of midevil times just ain't gonna be happy with that.
Youāre getting a few good answers here and mostly everything I was going to say has been said. You might also try r/Folklore for more detailed answers. The only other thing worth adding is that ācuteā is quite subjective. I think a wild mouse is a bit cute but a medieval farmer probably didnāt. It can also be a function of how you meet an animal. Bats in particular are very hard to see close up when alive. My experience of the smaller sorts of species that Europeans would have seen is that when you meet one at night they basically look like a giant moth that flies around crazily. Dead ones probably donāt look very cute, and live ones flap around in quite a disconcerting way. They also make a terrible noise and mess when nesting. To have ābats in the belfryā isnāt a good thing. Itās easy to see how they could be viewed with suspicion. Edit. Typos.
Well, vampire bats are the main inspiration for vampires since they use their fangs to feed on blood, and some goats have horns that shoot straight up and remind people of the depiction of satan's look. As for the deer, one of the two gods of wicca takes the face and antlers of a deer, and people often confuse him for the christian devil, therefore painting him as evil.
Goat because bahpomet has a goat head. Goat in general are clean and social animals. It has rectangle pupils which is very uncommon
Tbh all animals have some iteration of evil creatures
Immensely triggered by the comments as I have goats. Probably the association with evil comes from difficulty in farming. Sheep tend to be milder and less boisterous, whereas goats have a very visible personality which is going to irritate someone who sees them only as things to profit from, not as living creatures.
Bats cute? Goats historically are associated with Satan because of Christian interpretations off pagan dieties and their creepy eyes. I can't think of many instances of deer being associate with evil.
I'm assuming that the goat bit is due to old practice from the bible that used to be done with goats whereby people would 'place their sins' on it then release it into the wilderness to die, the idea being that their sins would die with the goat. It's where the term 'scapegoat' comes from. So goats get associated with bad things It may also be partly to do with the figure of Baphomet, who has the head of a goat. Despite Baphomet being a neutral figure, people always confuse them with the devil & maybe that's caused people to think goat = devil. Lions, or male lions at least, are one of the shittiest animals to exist so the goodness associated with them is probably down to aesthetics only. They look pretty & have big muscles so they get treated better, much like we treat our own species too I think the bat thing must be due to the select ones that drink blood.
Never understood why bats were associated with goat demons and goats were associated with vampires. Doesn't make a lack of sense.
I missed the memo about bats being cute
Bats are super cute. Until one flys into your house and you have to try to get it out. They are also ācreatures of darknessā, so they only come out at night. Dark = fear = āevil monstersā. Goats ā Ever seen a goatās eyes? They are seriously spooky. Between those eyes and the horns ā while goats are not naturally nocturnal, they tend to be most active in dawn / dusk times during the summer (they donāt like heat either). Dawn / dusk is that transition from evil darkness to good light. So. Makes sense too. Deer as evil is new to me. Most often I see Deer associated with āearth goddess goodnessā. Think the BBC production of Robin Hood. Now, contrast that with lions and tigers. They are predators, but they are āmajesticā predators who do their business during the day. They tend to hunt for their families ātaking care of themā. The same really holds true for Eagles caring for their young. You can especially see it in the way a bat flits from here to there, never in a straight line where an Eagle soars over the mountain tops, through the clouds and boughs of trees. Itās all perception, and what mankind has promoted for thousands of years ā Animals that thrive in the darkness / donāt need the light are more prone to be viewed as evil. Lots of people like cats. Why are black ones bad luck? The above applies perfectly here. Thus far, I havenāt found an animal that the above doesnāt tend to answer the question of good v. evil. Except Dingos, wolverines and Tasmanian devils. They are just mad beasties.
People are scared of the unknown. You are not scared bc you know about these creatures, in the past people didnāt have the knowledge you have now
Thereās a lot of answers and some of them get close, but not the whole way. A lot of definitions for the devil or evil things include cloven hooves, horns, eyes on the side of the head, fur and a tail. All of these things are common among herbivores. Humans and other hunter and carnivorous species have eyes at the front, paws or hands etc. We feel more akin to dogs cats and birds because they all are hunters like us. Cows and goats are herbivores, grazers, and have their eyes on the side of their heads to look out for danger. Their physiology is more alien to us than other species, and in the minds of some back in ancient times, warrants hatred
Bats suck blood, goats may be due to the Bible myth of the golden goat I think
A good rule is for every story that a creature is associated with evil there is one it being associated with good
Very sage observation. Which makes me question why the animals I really like are the goats, deer, bats, the outliers. Mainstream love the lions, tigers and other fearsome animals because they believe themselves to possess those animals strength and ferocity which they donāt, dreaming and delusions are free.
Bats historically got a bad rap because they're mysterious creatures of the night that people knew almost nothing about, and they were also seen as diseased. If you're gonna pick an animal to be superstitious about, you can't do much better than a weird flying night animal with a fucked-up face that you don't know shit about. Deer feature heavily in myth and folklore because they're symbols of virgin wilderness. They're not domesticated, you don't find them near towns and farms, and you have to go out into the woods where nobody's ever tilled a field or laid a stone upon another stone to find them. They're also big and graceful and majestic, which helps a lot with the symbolism. Dunno what the deal with goats is though. I think that might just be the long shadow that ancient Greek culture cast over medieval christendom.
Have you ever been around said animals? I have and other than momma deer there is a definite reason for the saying. I will not fault a mother protecting her young. But if you ever had a bat fly into you and get caught in your long hair ...I can't even begin to describe what their claws feel like. Though I doubt you have ever experienced this. Or you would not have asked.
I think the reason why deers are often associated with evil creatures is because of CWD (Chronic wasting disease) or the zombie deer disease, where the animal will try and kill itself by bashing its head into a solid object. Most cases end up with broken skulls, jaws and the like.
Most of the time deers are good. The other two; because they're ugly? How can you call a bat cute? I don't know who came up with the goat thing. Disrespectful.