[387] vi. 64.
[388] In the articles against Bernard Saget in the year 1300, recorded by Du Cange, I read—"Aves elegerunt Regem quemdam avem vocatam Duc, et est avis pulchrior et major inter omnes aves, et accidit semel quod Pica conquesta fuerat de Accipitre dicto Domino Regi, et congregatis avibus, dictus Rex nihil dixit nisi quod flavit (flevit?). Vel (veluti) idem de rege nostro dicebat ipse Episcopus, qui ipse est pulchrior homo de mundo, et tamen nihil scit facere, nisi respicere homines."
[389] Among the Tartars, according to Aldrovandi, the feathers of the male owl are worn as an amulet, probably to conjure the owl himself away, in the same way as, in the Vedic hymns, Death is invoked in order that it may remain far off. In the Khorda Avesta (p. 147), translated by Spiegel, the hero Verethraghna derives his strength from the owl's feathers.—We are acquainted with the funereal moon in the form of Proserpine; the Hindoos considered Manus in relation with the moon, with which, moreover, it was also identified. Manus, as the first and the father of men, is also the first of the dead. Manus gives the somas to Indras. The dying sun is exchanged in the funereal kingdom for the moon; but of the moon's kingdom the souls come down, and to the moon's kingdom they return. With Manus the word Menerva is joined, a Latin form, as a goddess, of the Greek Athênê. The owl, the symbol of Minerva, may be equivalent to Manus as the moon. The intimate connection which exists in myths and legends between the maiden aurora and the maiden moon is well-known; they reciprocally do services to each other. Athênê may very well have represented equally the two wise maidens—the moon, who sees everything in the dark night; the aurora, who, coming out of the gloomy night, illumines everything. The head of Zeus, out of which Athênê comes, appears to be a form of the eastern sky.
[390] "Selbst in sternloser Nacht ist keine Verborgenheit, es lauert eine grämliche Alte, die Eule; sie sitzt in ihrem finstern Kämmerlein, spinnt mit silbernen Spindelchen und sieht übel dazu, was in der Dunkelheit vorgeht. Der Holzschnitt des alten Flugblattes zeigt die Eule auf einem Stühlchen am Spinnrocken sitzend."
"Wenn durch die dünne Luft ein schwarzer Rabe fleucht
Und krähet sein Geschrei, und wenn des Eulen Fraue
Ihr Wiggen-gwige heult: sind Losungen sehr rauhe."
—Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. p. 155.
[392] i. 175.
[393] ii. 5.
[394] i. 1152.
[395] ii. 105, v. 3.