Folklore surrounding the Barn Owl is better recorded than for most other Owls. 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 lightening 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.
Odo of Cheriton, a Kentish preacher the 12th Century has this explanation of why the Owl is nocturnal: The Owl had stolen the rose, which was a prize awarded for beauty, and the other birds punished it by allowing it to come out only at night.
In parts of northern England it is good luck to see an Owl.
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