Literature/Folklore

 When we look at folklore, we commonly see the connection between rats, greed, and filth; one example originates in German folklore. Rat kings are described as an undefinable tangle of rats or as many rats who would come together to make some sort of larger rat bound by either their tails or stuck together by filth, blood, and feces. Sometimes they were described as being led by one rat or they all work as one unit. These rat kings were said to control all other rats, sometimes through some variation of psychic power. (2023, January 21) Rat kings were eventually associated with greed and disease. Despite how farfetched this may seem, it's not entirely off base.

Rat kings are an extremely uncommon, but very real, phenomenon where up to thirty-plus rats are bound together by their tails. The way in which they are bound may vary. Sometimes their tails are knotted, other times natural fibers weave their tails together, and sometimes filth sticks their tails together. Although it's possible to see rat kings as multiple living rats, most of them are found already dead. The legends attached to rat kings probably started after someone discovered one of these real-world equivalents.


The association that rat kings hold may also have some valid connections too. The connection with diseases was likely due to the fact that rat kings are much more likely to form when rat populations were especially dense; and since rats were vectors of diseases, especially some very devastating ones like the black plague, this means that in the conditions where they were likely to form, diseases were likely to spread. The connection with filth comes from the places we find them living. These include places where there is food waste and it is dark, which are generally places that humans consider filthy. The association with greed comes from the idea of a rat king being a literal king of rats. The connection becomes especially clear when considering the version of rat kings where one rat holds power over all the other rats in the overall group. During the civil rights movement, this association was made even more popular when Martin Luther King Jr. famously called the pope "the king of the rats right on top"(Naturalish).


Other animals have also been observed in a similar situation as a rat king; in 2018, five squirrels were observed as a "squirrel king". Despite being able to assume the same formation as rats, squirrels do not have the same association with disease and greed. This is likely because they are not as common of a vector, and live in the trees where they don't disturb humans as much. The fact that squirrels don't live in such dense populations means that squirrel kings are even less common than rat kings.


Rats generally hold the same associations today as they did back when the idea of rat kings was being spread. We still see them as dirty pests who are malevolent and spread disease; however, ideas are slowly starting to dissolve as more and more rats land in homes as pets. This is especially true since the pandemic caused pet sales to spike dramatically, and rats are a part of that spike. the rise in pet rats means that people are seeing a more positive side to rats to outweigh all the previously perceived negatives



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