Animals as Omens of Death¶

Overview¶

Across cultures, certain animals have been regarded as harbingers of death -- not necessarily as causes, but as messengers. Their appearance near a home, their unusual behaviour, or their cry in the night was read as a sign that death was near. For a witch or cunning person attuned to the natural world, these were not superstitions but observations -- patterns noticed over centuries by people who lived close to animals and paid attention to what they did.

There is, arguably, something real underneath the folklore. Animals are sensitive to changes that humans cannot perceive: shifts in body chemistry, the scent of illness, the stillness that precedes death. A dog that refuses to leave a dying person's side may not be an omen, but it is not nothing either.

The Animals¶

Corvids (Crows, Ravens, Magpies)¶

Sacred to the Morrigan in Irish tradition and to Odin in Norse mythology. A single crow or raven near a house, or an unusual gathering of them, was widely considered an omen of death. The magpie rhyme ("one for sorrow, two for joy...") encodes a folk divination system that is still recited today, often without any awareness of its origins.

Ravens are among the most intelligent birds, and they are drawn to carrion. Their association with death is partly observational: where there are dead things, there are ravens. But the folklore goes deeper than scavenging. The raven is a messenger from the otherworld. In the Welsh Mabinogion, Brân the Blessed (whose name means "crow" or "raven") is a giant king whose severed head continues to speak and protect Britain after his death. In Norse mythology, Odin's ravens Huginn and Muninn ("thought" and "memory") fly across the world each day and return to whisper what they have seen.

Crows remember human faces and communicate about them to other crows. There is something uncanny about being watched by a bird that watches you back, and remembers.

Owls¶

The owl's cry at night -- especially near a house where someone was ill -- was one of the most widespread death omens across Europe. In Welsh tradition, the owl was called aderyn y corff -- "the bird of the corpse." In Roman tradition, the owl was strix, a word that eventually became the Italian strega (witch).

The owl hunts in darkness and silence. It sees what others cannot. Its face is flat, almost human, and its eyes face forward like a person's rather than to the sides like most birds. It is an uncanny creature by nature, and cultures worldwide have associated it with the dead and the unseen.

In Greek mythology, the owl is sacred to Athena -- goddess of wisdom -- but also to Hecate, goddess of crossroads and witchcraft. The owl's dual association with wisdom and death makes it a natural familiar and a natural psychopomp.

Black Dogs¶

The spectral black dog appears across British folklore under many names: the Barghest in Yorkshire, the Black Shuck in East Anglia, the Gwyllgi in Wales, the Cù Sìth in Scotland. These are not ordinary dogs. They are larger than any natural hound, often described with glowing red or green eyes, and they appear at liminal spaces -- crossroads, churchyards, ancient paths, bridges -- the same places associated with Hecate and with the boundary between worlds.

Some black dog traditions are straightforwardly ominous: to see the Black Shuck was to die within the year. But others are more ambiguous. In some accounts, the black dog is a guardian rather than a threat -- it escorts lone travellers safely through dangerous places, then vanishes. This protective aspect links it to the psychopomp tradition: the black dog guides, rather than destroys.

The most famous literary black dog is the Hound of the Baskervilles, but Conan Doyle was drawing on deep folk tradition.

Moths¶

The death's-head hawkmoth (Acherontia atropos) carries a skull-shaped marking on its thorax and has been feared as a death omen since antiquity. Its scientific name is a triple invocation of death: Acheron (the river of the dead in Greek mythology), Atropos (the Fate who cuts the thread of life, and also the genus of belladonna), and Lachesis and Styx appear in the names of related species.

The moth is drawn to light -- it flies toward illuminated windows -- and its arrival at a sickroom window, beating against the glass, must have been a disturbing sight to anyone already watching for signs. It also produces a distinctive squeaking sound by forcing air through its proboscis, which adds to the effect.

Hares¶

The hare is deeply entangled with witchcraft folklore. Witches were said to shapeshift into hares. A hare crossing your path was unlucky. In some traditions, a hare near a house foretold death. The hare was also sacred to the moon -- and Moon Lore dedicates an entire section to "the Hare in the Moon," a lunar myth that appears across cultures from China to Africa to Mexico.

The hare's association with witchcraft may have practical roots: hares are crepuscular (most active at dawn and dusk), they behave erratically when startled (the origin of "mad as a March hare"), and they are solitary, elusive creatures that seem to appear and disappear at will. A solitary, elusive creature seen at twilight, associated with the moon and with transformation -- it is easy to see why folklore made her a witch.

Robins¶

In British folklore, the robin was associated with covering the dead with leaves -- as in the tale of the Babes in the Wood, where robins bury the dead children under a blanket of leaves. A robin entering a house was sometimes read as a death omen, especially if it flew to the window and tapped on the glass. Despite this, the robin is generally regarded with affection; killing one was considered extremely unlucky.

The robin's red breast connects it symbolically to blood and sacrifice. In Christian folk tradition, the robin got its red breast by trying to pull the thorns from Christ's crown, staining its feathers with his blood. The same bird that buries the dead also bleeds for the dying.

Bees¶

Bees occupy a peculiar position in death folklore. They are not omens of death but participants in it. In British tradition, when someone died, the bees had to be told. This practice -- "telling the bees" -- involved going to the hives, knocking three times, and informing the bees of the death, often by name. If the bees were not told, they would swarm, stop producing honey, or die themselves.

The practice reflects an older belief that bees were messengers between the living and the dead, that they carried news between worlds. It also reflects the intimate relationship between a household and its hives in a pre-industrial economy where honey was the primary sweetener and beeswax provided light.

The Logic of Omens¶

It is tempting to dismiss animal death omens as pure superstition. But they are better understood as a language -- a way of reading the natural world for information about the unseen. People who lived close to animals noticed that certain species behaved differently around the dying. Dogs stayed close. Crows gathered. Owls called. Whether these behaviours had supernatural significance or were simply the responses of perceptive animals to biochemical changes is a question the folklore does not ask, because the distinction would have been meaningless to the people who observed them.

Connections¶

See Familiar Spirits & Animal Companions -- many death-omen animals also serve as familiars
See Psychopomps in Pagan Traditions -- animal psychopomps
See Moon Lore -- Harley discusses the Hare in the Moon extensively
See Samhain & the Thinning Veil -- the liminal time when death omens are most potent
See The Poison Garden -- the death's-head hawkmoth takes its name from the same mythology as belladonna
See Death Folklore of the British Isles -- telling the bees, churchyard lore, and the spectral black dog in British tradition
See Divination -- animal behaviour as augury, and the magpie rhyme as folk divination