>>19370550
Ovid, Metamorphoses 5. 534 (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"Ceres [Demeter] was resolved to win her daughter [Persephone] back [from Haides]. Not so fate permitted, for the girl had broken her fast and wandering, childlike, through the orchard trees from a low branch had picked a pomegranate and peeled the yellow rind and found the seeds and nibbled seven. The only one who saw was Orphne's son, Ascalaphus, whom she, no the least famous of the Nymphae Avernales (Underworld Nymphs), bore once to Acheron in her dusky bower. He saw and told, in spite, and by his tale stole her return away.The Queen of Hell (Regina Erebi) [Persephone]groaned in distress and changed the tale-bearer into a bird. She threw into his face water from Phlegethon, and lo! a beak and feathers and enormous eyes! Reshaped, he wears great tawny wings, his head swells huge . . . a loathsome bird, ill omen for mankind, a skulking screech-owl, sorrow's harbinger. That tell-tale tongue of his no doubt deserved the punishment."
[P]ersephone, Queen of Hell, turned Ascalaphus into an owl.
Guardian_P
She had a cult following.
Follow the wives…