![]() It should be clear that the owl was honored as the keeper of spirits who had passed from one plane to another. A misunderstanding of this necessary relationship gave the owl some negative associations with death. In this light the owl was ruler of the night and seer of souls. In ancient Egyptian, Celtic, and Hindu cultures the symbolic meaning of owl revolved around guardianship of the underworlds, and a protection of the dead. The owl is sacred to the Greek goddess of learning, Athena and is even depicted on some Greco-Roman currency as a symbol of status, intelligence and of course, wealth. Owl Meanings in the Realms of Animal Symbolism In general, owls are viewed as harbingers of bad luck, ill health, or death. If one saw an owl or heard its hoot, someone was going to die. Ovid, too, constantly speaks of this bird's presence as an evil omen and indeed the same notions respecting it may be found among the writings of most of the ancient poets." A list of "omens drear" in John Keats' Hyperion includes the "gloom-bird's hated screech." Pliny the Elder reports that owl's eggs were commonly used as a hangover cure.Īmong the Kikuyu of Kenya it was believed that owls were harbingers of death. Virgil describes its death-howl from the top of the temple by night, a circumstance introduced as a precursor of Dido's death. He represents it also as a funereal bird, a monster of the night, the very abomination of human kind. Thiselton-Dyer in his Folk-lore of Shakespeare says that "from the earliest period it has been considered a bird of ill-omen, and Pliny tells us how, on one occasion, even Rome itself underwent a lustration, because one of them strayed into the Capitol. In Arab mythology, owls are seen as bad omens It is said that if you are outside in the broad day light and an owl flies over your head a family member or loved one would die within the coming week. Also, in the native Cherokee culture, as well as many other Native American cultures, owls are a very bad omen.
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