The Magic of Owls

Owls are interesting creatures. They are nocturnal, which appeals to me as a nocturnal witch, and they are associated with wisdom among other things. (More on that in a bit.) They have made appearances in pop culture and in mythology. I’m going to try to cover as much as I can in this post!

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About Owls

Owls are birds of prey and nocturnal as I mentioned. They tend to hunt other birds, insects, and smaller mammals like mice and rabbits. They are basically all over the Earth. They are divided into two families called true owls (strigidae) and barn owls (Tytonidae).

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One of the most interesting facts about owls in my opinion is that they can rotate their heads as much as 270 degrees. That’s insane to me.

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They have a wide range of sizes from the Elf Owl as little as 31g (1oz) and 13.5cm (5in) all the way to the Eurasian eagle-owl and Blakiston’s fish owls that are up to 4.2kg (9.3lbs) and 71cm (28in).

Since they hunt mainly at night, they use stealth and surprise to catch their prey. They use their beak and talons to kill their prey and then swallow it whole when possible.

Fun!

Owl Symbolism

Some things the owl represents are:

🦉Intuition
🦉Change
🦉Seeing through illusions and masks
🦉Wisdom
🦉Death and change
🦉Moon
🦉Feminine
🦉Witches and witchcraft

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Owls in Mythology and Folklore

(This is not an exhaustive list, of course. This would be a much larger post if it were. lol)

In ancient Greece, owls were associated with the Goddess Athena. Owls were also looked at as protectors. Greek soldiers would look to see if an owl flew over them before battle as they believed this to be a sign of victory.

https://goddessgift.net/athena-goddess-statue-ccbz-PT-7853.html

In ancient Rome, hearing an owl’s hoot meant death would soon follow. It is believe that an owl predicted the deaths of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Commodus Aurelius, and Agrippa. There was also a Roman superstition that witches shapeshifted into owls and sucked the blood of babies, because of course. :smile:

In the Roman myth of Proserpine and Pluto (Persephone and Hades in Greek), Ascalpus is the one who reported that Proserpine picked a pomegranate and he was turned into an owl as punishment.

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In English Folklore, barn owls were used to predict weather. If an owl was screeching, they believed this would bring cold weather or a storm. If the weather was already bad and an owl was screeching, they believed this to mean the weather was about to change.

Owl eggs were used to treat some issues such as alcoholism, improving eyesight, and whooping-cough. If a child was given a raw owl egg, they believed this would protect the child from becoming drunk for the rest of their life. You would think that one was proven wrong rather quickly. :smile:

In the American Indian cultures, owls mean different things to different tribes. I’ll go over just a few here. The Apache Indians believed that if you dream of an owl, death was coming. The Lanape Indians had a different interpretation of owls in dreams. They believed this meant the owl would become their guardian. The Mojave Indians in Arizona believed that the first step after death was becoming an owl.

Owls in Pop Culture

We’re going to start with Harry Potter again. If you read my post on deer, you know I started with Harry Potter there too. What can I say? I like Harry Potter!

In the Harry Potter series, owls were basically postal workers. They delivered letters, parcels, and such. Harry also had a pet snowy owl named Hedwig. There were also some owls in the Weasley family and many other places in the Harry Potter universe.

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Anyone remember the old Tootsie Pop commercials? Mr. Owl was always licking a Tootsie Pop to see how many licks it took to get to the center.

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The 1981 version of the movie Clash of the Titans had a mechanical owl named Bubo. It was made by Hephaestus and modeled after Athena’s owl.

Should I mention the restaurant chain Hooters? Lol Let’s just stop there.

DC Comics had a character called Owlman. Like a lot of comic book characters, he changed a lot. Sometimes he was a villain and sometimes a superhero.

I think that is enough for this post. If there are other animals you would like me to do this for, let me know! I make no promises but I’ll see what I can do

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Resources:

All gifs came from giphy.



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