Anonymous ID: b4cd71 April 12, 2021, 5:09 p.m. No.13412519   🗄️.is đź”—kun

Pliny the Elder described the owl as “the very monster of the night” and argued that “when it appears, it foretells nothing but evil.” He also believed the viscera of owls held curative properties that, when applied properly, could restore health and relieve pain. A healthy elixir of owl brain and oil introduced directly into the ear canal, for example, was a handy cure for an earache. From Pliny’s time onward, owls have always been a symbol of shifting and seemingly antithetical qualities—hulking observer and swift hunter, totem of wisdom and escort of the occult. These dueling qualities and fluctuating characteristics compete across cultures and traditions to cast the owl as a creature of influence, both benevolent and evil, and therefore, a bird to be taken seriously.