Owl
An owl, the night bird of Halloween. Roman and later English writers took its cry as an omen of death; in Greek myth it was the bird of Athena, goddess of wisdom.
Meaning
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which also writes about the Halloween Bat, explains the owl’s place at Halloween by its large eyes, its hoots and its night hunting, and by its history: the ancient Romans believed an owl could announce a coming death and that witches turned into owls to travel at night, while in Greek myth it was Athena’s bird. Witch lore also listed owls among the familiars the devil gave witches (National Geographic).
Origin and history
Brand’s Popular Antiquities (1853) gathers English and Latin writers on the omen. It quotes Henry Bourne: when the owl sends forth “its hoarse and dismal voice, it is an omen of the approach of some terrible thing”. Chaucer has “The oule eke, that of deth the bode bringeth”. Pliny called the bubo, or eagle owl, “funebris et noctis monstrum”, the funeral bird and monster of the night, and Pennant, in his Zoology, records that Rome itself was ritually purified because an eagle owl strayed into the Capitol.
Bartholomaeus’s encyclopedia De Proprietatibus Rerum, in the English edition printed by Thomas Berthelet, says “The cryenge of the owle by nyght tokeneth deathe”. A play in Reed’s Old Plays, quoted by Brand, puts the belief in two lines: “When screech owls croak upon the chimney tops, / It’s certain then you of a corse shall hear.”
Read next
- Next in Halloween symbolsGrim ReaperDeath as a skeleton carrying a scythe. The figure comes from the pictures of Death that followed the Black Death in late-medieval Europe.
- In Bird symbolismOwl symbolismThe bird of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, stamped on the coins of Athens, and in Hindu art the vahana, or animal vehicle, of the goddess Lakshmi. In Roman and English belief, and in Cherokee and North Carolina folk belief as it was recorded, its cry at night was a warning of death or evil.
See also
Witch’s hat and broom, Bat, Huginn and Muninn, Jack-o’-lantern, Black cat, Skeleton and skull.
Sources
- Wings, Whiskers, and Webs (US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2025), US Fish and Wildlife Service, story, September 2025, US Fish and Wildlife Service, section on owls
- Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (John Brand, ed. Henry Ellis, 1853), John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, arranged and revised by Sir Henry Ellis, vol. 3 (London: Bohn, 1853), Internet Archive (University of Toronto copy), The Owl, pp. 206–208
- How broomsticks, cauldrons, and pointy hats became essential witch gear (Johnna Rizzo, National Geographic, 2024), Johnna Rizzo, National Geographic, 25 October 2024 (adapted from The History of Witchcraft, 2024), National Geographic, section on familiars
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 30, 2026. How we research
Added .