

wanderers, the night -foray, war, lightning, At the 

 desolation, solitude, and death. It is said, I Rising of 

 know not how demonstrated or traced, that e oon * 

 the name Ulysses is but the variant of the 

 Etruscan Ulixe or Sikulian Oulioces, words 

 supposed to indicate the ululation of the owl's 

 cry (in Italy I have heard the name of the 

 sweet and plaintive little aziola or aziolo 

 derived from the same source) : and that it 

 was given to the Homeric hero because he 

 was the first to adventure sea -voyaging on 

 moonlit nights, because he too was a night- 

 wanderer. But unless Ulixe or Oulixes be 

 older than the Greek name, what of Odysseus? 

 In like fashion some speculative philologists 

 derive 'Pallas' from the Turanian owl-name 

 Polio. 



I heard a singular fragment of owl-folklore 

 once on the island of Arran. The narrator 

 said the white owl had seven distinct hoots, 

 but all I need recall here is that the seventh 

 was when the ' Reul Fheasgair ' ceased to be 

 the Evening Star and became the 'Reul na 

 Maidne,' the Day-Star. Was this a memory 

 of some myth associating the owl with the 

 otherworld (or darkness or moontide or Night) 

 disclosed every eve at the opening of the Gates 

 of Dusk ? . . . the time of sleep and dreams, 

 of strange nocturnal life, of silence and mystery, 



209 p 



