Owls have been getting a bad rap for thousands of years.  I think we all, regardless of culture, respect and fear the Owl.  Most cultures have respected Owls for their wisdom, and feared them, because of their screech of death. 

In early Rome a dead Owl nailed to the door of a house averted all evil that it
supposedly had earlier caused. To hear the hoot of an Owl presaged imminent death. The
deaths of Julius Caesar, Augustus, Commodus Aurelius, and Agrippa were apparently all
predicted by an Owl.

The Roman Army was warned of impending disaster by an Owl before its defeat at Charrhea,
  on the plains between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

  According to Artemidorus, a second Century soothsayer, to dream of an Owl meant that a traveler would be shipwrecked or robbed.

  Another Roman superstition was that witches transformed into Owls, and sucked the blood of
  babies.

In Roman Mythology, Proserpine (Persephone) was transported to the underworld against
her will by Pluto (Hades), god of the underworld, and was to be allowed to return to her
mother Ceres (Demeter), goddess of agriculture, providing she ate nothing while in the
underworld. Ascalpus, however, saw her picking a pomegranate, and told what he had seen.
He was turned into an Owl for his trouble – "a sluggish Screech Owl, a loathsome
bird."

In
English literature the Barn Owl had a sinister reputation probably because it was a bird
of darkness, and darkness was always associated with death. During the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, the poets Robert Blair and William Wordsworth used the Barn Owl as
their favourite "bird of doom." During that same period many people believed
that the screech or call of an Owl flying past the window of a sick person meant imminent
death.

The Barn Owl has also been used to predict the weather by people in England. A
screeching Owl meant cold weather or a storm was coming. If heard during foul weather a
change in the weather was at hand.

The Custom of nailing an Owl to a
barn door to ward off evil and lightning persisted into the 19th century.

Another traditional English belief was that if you walked around an Owl in a tree, it
would turn and turn its head to watch you until it wrung its own neck.

Among early English folk cures, alcoholism was treated with Owl egg. The imbiber was
prescribed raw eggs and a child given this treatment was thought to gain lifetime
protection against drunkenness.
Owls’ eggs, cooked until they turned into ashes, were also used as a potion to improve eyesight.
Owl Broth was given to children suffering from Whooping-cough.

Anyhow, at the end of my property, I have an old building, which is used for storing my lawn maintenance and gardening equipment.  I hadn’t entered the building, since October, so I didn’t know what to expect, as I opened the double doors.  The building is bereft of electricity, so there are no lights to illuminate the dark musty building. 

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, as I passed through the doors.  I pulled down the wooden planks, which blocked the sun and unwanted visitors. While pulling the last wooden plank off the windows, I glanced up at the rafters.  I caught the glimpse of something, but pondered that it was just my imagination.  I began pulling the tiller out, in order to prepare for a garden, when I overheard a shuffling in the rafters.

I glared up at the baulks and saw a Barn Owl, standing on his wooden perch, staring down at me.  I had awakened him, whilst dragging out the garden tiller.  I started remembering something my grandfather had told me a long time ago, as I walked out of the building.

My grandfather always told me to beware of Owls.  He caught me and a bunch of other boys throwing rocks at an owl in his barn.  He pulled me to the side and said, "Boy, there are things in this world that none of us can contemplate".

"Yes sir", I replied, with tears in my eyes.

"My people believed that owls brought death to whomever they screeched at", he uttered.  "Spirits roam this earth and inhabit all sorts of things, even owls.  Don’t ever taunt an owl".

Wiping the tears away, I looked up at him in fright, and said, "Tell me more, grandpa".

"You’re not old enough to understand, besides, I think I smell that blackberry pie, your grandmother is baking", he uttered, as he took my hand and directed me into the house.

"Hmm, I best not make it mad", I cogitated, as I looked upwards at it.

I finished using my tiller, and cautiously pushed it back into the building.  As I was closing the doors, the owl flew out, and landed up on the roof.  While locking the door, I glanced up to see him glaring down at me with intensity.

It was getting dark, so perhaps he was getting ready to fly out anyway, so I started walking away, when I heard him cry that horrible death screech.  As I got closer to the house, he followed me, and landed on a pine tree a few meters from the back door.  I opened the back door, and whilst passing into the house, I heard him screech again.  A few minutes later, I peeked out a window, facing the backyard, and saw him still perched in that tree, intently staring in my direction. 

So, ever since then, I’ve been a wee bit freaked out, but I know it’s all a bunch of bunk. 

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