mourning. It is also the bird of night pre- At the 



eminently (what a pity the old-English owl- Risi i^ of 

 ,. , J v . \> J -v i. i i the Moon, 



light as a variant for twilight has become 



obsolete) ; the bird of moonlight or the Moon ; 

 the bird of Silence, of Ruin, of the Grave, of 

 Death. In some places a dead owl is still 

 transfixed to the outside of a door, to avert 

 lightning. Perhaps it is for the same reason 

 that a caged owl is held to be a dangerous 

 co-inmate of a house during a thunderstorm. 

 A thousand legends have woven this sombre 

 raiment of associations, though the owl's only 

 distinction from other birds of prey is that it 

 can see in the dark and is nocturnal in habit. 

 It loves solitary places, because there undis- 

 turbed, but is not all darkness solitary? In 

 Syria the peasant calls the owl 'the mother 

 of ruins,' which is poetically apt, as is the 

 German 'the sorrowing mother,' but our 

 northern ' night- witch ' and the grim Breton 

 ' soul-harrier ' (surely a survival of the Greek 

 idea of the owl as a soul-guide) are unjust to 

 an inoffensive bird whose concern is not with 

 souls and graves and ruins but with rats and 

 mice. A German naturalist has even, I 

 remember, written to prove that the owl is 

 pre-eminently a bird of love, of single-hearted 

 devotion, ' the dove of the night ' : and there 

 is a Danish poem about ' the Silver-Spinner ' 



207 



