The blood of a hare was regarded as one of the finest remedies for erysipelas and bloody flux, and this by a certain “sympathetic power.” A towel dipped in hare’s blood and allowed to dry was kept to be touched to an epileptic patient.—(See Von Helmont, “Orotrika,” English translation, London, 1662, pp. 114, 475.)
The Ostaiks of Siberia “regardent comme sacré l’arbre où un aigle a fait sa ponte plusieurs années de suite; et ils ont aussi beaucoup d’égards pour cette aigle. On ne peut les offenser plus cruellement qu’en tuant cette aigle ou en détruisant son nid.”—(“Voyages de Pallas,” vol. iv. pp. 81, 82.)
The very name of owl (googue) was considered unlucky by the Abyssinians for use as the watchword, although we are told that it was so used.—(See Bruce, “Nile,” vol. iv. p. 698.)
That a belief in the sinister character of the hooting of the owl by night prevailed all over Europe, especially among the Romans, in the period of their greatest civilization, and that this credulity was transmitted down almost to our own times, see in Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 206 et seq., article “Owl.” He quotes from Suetonius, Pliny, Ovid, Lucan, Claudia, and from various old English authors,—“The cryinge of the owle by night betokeneth deathe, as divinours conjecte and deme,” and
“Then screech-owls croak upon the chimney-tops
It’s certain then you of a corse shall hear.”
In Egypt, “it is said that in whatever house a cat died all the family shaved the eyebrows.”—(Idem, vol. iii. p. 38, article “Sorcery.”)
“In the earliest period the horse seems to have been the favorite animal for sacrifice.”—(“Teut. Mythol.,” Grimm, vol. i. p. 47.)
The crow was always a bird of bad omen among the Romans.—(See Brand, “Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii. p. 213, article “The Crow.”)
Roman magicians asserted “that the heart of a horned owl applied to the left breast of a woman, while asleep, will make her disclose all her secret thoughts.... Persons who have it about them in battle will be sure to display valor;” but “it was ominous to see the bird itself.”—(Pliny, lib. xxix, c. 26.)