20 OWLS 



the death of Dido. It was an owl that, amongst 

 other portents, predicted the death of Julius Caesar. 



" And yesterday the bird of night did sit, 

 Even at noonday, upon the market-place, 

 Hooting and shrieking." 



It was into the form of an owl, when the day of 

 destiny had come, that the Fury, sent by Juno, 

 transformed herself, and by flitting with shrieks 

 before the face, and by flapping with her wings 

 upon the shield, of the ill-fated Turnus, paralysed 

 him with terror, just as he was about to enter on 

 his final conflict with ^Eneas, for the plighted hand 

 of Lavinia. 



No incantation in mediaeval times was deemed 

 likely to be successful, unless the "boding owl" 

 shrieked assent. The " owlet's wing " was as potent 

 an ingredient as the blind worm's sting, or the nose 

 of Turk or Tartar's lips, or the liver of blaspheming 

 Jew, in the hell-broth of the witches' caldron on the 

 "blasted" Forres Heath. And when the deed of 

 darkness was all but perpetrated, in Macbeth's 

 castle, upon the sleeping Duncan, 



" It was the owl that shrieked ; a fatal bellman 

 Which gives the stern'st good-night." 



Once more, when that " ill-digest, deformed 



