FABLE AND FOLKLORE 183 



into an owl, and when children hear at night the screams 

 of one of these nocturnal hunters they are told the story 

 of its strange origin — but why Pharaoh's daughter? 

 Then there is that cryptic "little ode" quoted from the 

 memory of his childhood by Charles Waterton 73 in ref- 

 erence to the barn-owl, and explained elsewhere in this 

 book, which runs thus : 



Once I was a monarch's daughter, and sat on a lady's knee, 

 But now I'm a nightly rover, banished to the ivy-tree, 

 Crying hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, 



for my feet are cold 

 Pity me, for here you see me, persecuted, poor and old. 



If the delvers into Indo-European mythology are 

 right, the dread of owls existed long before the Romans 

 colonized among Gauls and Britons, and were in turn 

 overrun by Teutonic hordes. It exists among the wild- 

 est savages in every part of the world where owls prowl 

 with ghostly silence and stealth and hoot in the darkness, 

 startling men's nerves, and it survives in all peasantries. 

 In that delightful Sicilian book by Mrs. John L. 

 Heaton, 80 we have a narrative of a journey after dark 

 with some village-women. "A screech-owl [citca] 

 hooted. Gra Vainia crossed herself, and Donna Ciccia 

 muttered: 'Beautiful Mother of the Rock, deliver us!' 

 Donna Catina touched something [a gold cross] in the 

 bosom of her dress." On another occasion: "The silence 

 that fell again was broken by the hoot of the cuca. 'Some 

 one must die/ shuddered Donna Catina." 



Owls have always been regarded as the familiars of 

 witches, sometimes bearing them through the night on 

 noiseless wings to some unholy tryst, sometimes con- 

 tributing materials to their malignant, magic-brewing 

 recipes. It was by meddling in such matters that the 



