WHY ARE OWLS ASSOCIATED WITH WISDOM?

Owls, particularly the English Barn Owl, pictured below, are a nocturnal predatory bird.

To maximise use of the minimal available light, their eyes are set to look forward for binocular vision, and the surrounding feathers focus all light towards the eyes, rather like a satellite TV receiver dish. This results in the appearance of a face with a slightly hooked nose and a distinctly studious appearance.

This appearance resulted in the owl being associated with teaching, study and learning.

This mythology has been around for millennia. The owl was a symbol for Athena, the ancient Greek Goddess associated with wisdom.

There may be something to the idea that their ability to hunt at night and catch creatures humans couldn’t detect added to the legend of their wisdom.

Their ability to turn their heads right around also adds to the impression of their being ‘all seeing’, rather like the school teacher who seems to know what’s going on behind his back. As nocturnal predators they also have acutely sensitive hearing, another characteristic of teachers which also enables them to know what’s happening behind their backs. They are also quiet, attentive listeners, additional characteristics of wise students. In fact owls are extremely quiet, including special features for silent flight, hovering and swooping, that make them fearsome stealth predators for night time rodents merely having a quiet nibble in a field of corn. One moment a contented nibble, the next silent death from dark skies above.

Owls are not universally thought of positively. Certainly mice do not think kindly of them, but this is also true of some humans. In some African and Middle Eastern cultures seeing an owl is considered to be an omen of death or indicative that something evil is afoot.

Their stealthy silence, impression of all seeing wisdom, and their ability to disappear into the darkness of the night and return silently with prey in their beaks has also given them an association with being magical creatures. Not only do they have the ability to appear and disappear undetected at night, but they also have the ability to disappear in plain sight, due to excellent camouflage.

It’s no accident that JK Rowling used owls in her Harry Potter books. What could be a more natural creature for students at a school for magic to use to carry messages?

Here’s a good link to some articles on the mythology and folklore associated with owls. Link

The funny (ironical) thing, is that owls aren’t particularly intelligent birds. And they make very bad messengers.