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Mankind's fascination with owls goes back to the Old Stone Age, for they are one of very few birds depicted in cave paintings. As creatures which typically inhabit the mysterious night and are heard much more often than seen, it is understandable that they should have aroused curiosity. For one thing, their large forward facing eyes give their faces a quality quite different from that of most birds.

Anyone who has watched the ghost-like Barn Owl, flitting effortlessly at early dusk across rough meadows in search of mice, or who has heard its shrill screech in the dead of night in a lonely place, will easily grasp the impact owls can have on human senses. So too those who have paused by woods on a frosty, moonlit night to listen to owls calling each other, each hoot finding a reponse or maybe several. In Britain, these tend to be Tawny Owls. Owls have a soft and silent flight and their eyes can pierce the impenetrable dark. They are at home among the spirits of the night, which hold terrors for some people.

Across the millennia and across the globe owls have entered folklore and belief in a big way. To the ancient Greeks owls were an omen of victory. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, had a Little Owl as her emblem. This may be the origin of the idea of the 'wise old owl'. The Romans though, saw owls as a symbol of evil, disaster in battle, imminent death or shipwreck.
In America, Native People's beliefs varied considerably. Some regarded owls as protective spirits. Among the Hopis, the Burrowing Owl was regarded as a spirit, the God of the Dead.

Several cultures, widely scattered, regarded owls as a danger to children. In Malaya it was believed that owls ate new born infants, in Arabia owls were thought to carry off babies at night. In East Africa owls were believed to bring sickness to children. By contrast, in Yorkshire, UK, owl soup was thought to cure whooping cough! More bizarrely, in Wales the call of owls amongst houses was taken to mean an unmarried girl had lost her virginity. There's busy, isn't it!

This only scratches the surface of the associations Mankind has attached to owls. The fascination goes on via Harry Potter into a new generation, of course, but even without that, any elusive night creatures with such evocative calls are almost bound to excite our imaginations.

Learn more about this author, Mark Hopkins.
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