#ill omen

OWL

Ambivalent as the bird of wisdom and of darkness and death.

Amerindian: Wisdom; divination

Celtic: Chthonic; ‘the night hag’; the 'corpse bird’.

Chinese: Evil; crime; death; horror; ungrateful children.

Christian: Satan; the powers of darkness; solitude; mourning; desolation; bad news. The call of the owl is the 'song of death’. The owl was used to depict Jews who preferred the darkness to the light of the gospel.

Egyptian: Death; night; coldness.

Graeco-Roman: The screed owl symbolized wisdom and was sacred to Athena/Minerva. The owl was an attribute of the Etruscan god of darkness and of Night.

Hebrew:Blindness.

Hindu: Emblem of Yama, god of the dead.

Japanese: Death; ill omen.

Mexican: Night; death.

[Source: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C. Cooper]