The Seba library treats Owl in 8 passages, across 5 authors (including Hillman, James, Signell, Karen A., Eliade, Mircea).
her animal, the owl, is her ‘wisdom,’ but it is also a bird of doom, a screeching night-creature that can be situated among the Harpies, Sirens, Keres, Moirae-winged images of fateful necessities.
Hillman deconstructs the owl-as-wisdom icon by insisting it belongs equally to the realm of fatal necessity and chthonic terror, not merely to rational Athenian clarity.
, Mythic Figures, 2007thesis
animals who have the uncanny power to see in the dark, such as the cat and the owl, often symbolize to us wisdom of the mysteries and the afterlife.
Signell grounds the owl’s symbolic power clinically, arguing that its night-vision makes it an archetypal carrier of wisdom about death and hidden mysteries in women’s dreams.
, Wisdom of the Heart: Working with Womens Dreams, 1991thesis
Athena might appear in a dream as a confident, active woman, or an owl.
Signell equates the owl directly with the Athena archetype in the dream life of contemporary women, treating it as a living goddess-image.
, Wisdom of the Heart: Working with Womens Dreams, 1991supporting
shamans are considered to obtain their power from Mukat, the Creator, but this power is transmitted through guardian spirits (the owl, fox, coyote, bear, etc.), which act as the god’s messengers to shamans.
Eliade positions the owl as one of several shamanic guardian spirits acting as divine messengers in Cahuilla Desert tradition, embedding it within the cross-cultural economy of spirit-helpers.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
assuredly no owl, but perhaps a crow, though Aristotle says no crow ever entered the Acropolis at Athens… for the relation of Athens to the crow and the enmity of crow and owl see Dr Frazer’s note.
Harrison’s philological scrutiny of Athena’s bird-cult reveals that the owl’s privileged Acropolis status was contested, pointing to a historical displacement of the crow and the constructed nature of the owl-Athena identification.
, Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, 1912supporting
The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Repressed Feminine: a Psychological Study
Woodman’s title invokes the folkloric owl-transformation narrative from Hamlet as a governing metaphor for the repression and disfigurement of the feminine, anchoring clinical psychology in the image of failed nourishment and metamorphosis.
, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Repressed Feminine: a Psychological Study, 1980supporting
see also ante-lope; ants; bat; bear; bee; bird; boa constrictor; buffaloes; bull; cat; centaurs; chicken; cock; colt; coyote; crow; cuckoo; deer; dog; duck; eagle; elk; emu; ermine; falcon; fish; fly; fox; gander; goat; goose; grebe; gull; hare; hens; heron; horse; jaguars; kingfisher; lambs; leopard; lions; lizard; mouse; ostrich; otter; owl; panther
The shamanic index catalogues the owl as one of many helping animal spirits, confirming its systemic place within the encyclopedic shamanic animal register without individuating its specific qualities.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951aside
In that ‘sweet maid’ buried in her courtier’s garments I saw a princess sleeping in an obese body.
Though not treating the owl directly, this passage establishes the psychological context—the ‘baker’s daughter’ folklore and Ophelia image—that animates Woodman’s use of the owl as a symbol of the repressed feminine.
, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Repressed Feminine: a Psychological Study, 1980aside