Owls & omens
Avian symbolism and folklore in Gesta Danorum
The owls are perched in rows,
under the dark yews which shade them.
Like strange gods they dart their red eyes.
They contemplate.
Charles Baudelaire, Les Hiboux.
Medieval Nordic writers had a keen interest in exploring the connections and disparities between humans and animals. The texts teem with domestic animals like horses, goats, cattle, and wild animals like bears and wolves. Birds too, occupied the medieval mind. Most famous today are Óðinn's ravens Huginn and Muninn, who flew all over the world to gather information for their master. Ravens and eagles were the most prominent birds in Old Norse literature, carrion birds who along with the wolf were a common feature in skaldic poetry, symbolizing the grim finality of death. Birds in Old Norse literature have received little attention; birds in Gesta Danorum even less so. Today, I will focus on one particular type of bird in Gesta Danorum of which almost nothing is written; the owl.
Owls are rare guests in medieval Nordic literature. In Old Norse prose, the owl only features in translations and adaptations of continental literature. In Tristram's saga, the appearance of an owl is considered a harbinger of bad weather. In the translation of Alexander the Great's letter to his teacher Aristotle, owls are one of the animal species described in the account of the wonders of India. In the saga of Sigurd the Silent, the owl apparently has the status of a bird of the battlefield.
The owl is also rarely encountered in Old Norse poetry. It is found in a poetic list of bird names, and in the Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál. The poem recounts a long list of places where runes were carved, including "on Gungnir’s point, and on Grani’s breast, on the nail of a Norn, and on the beak of an owl."
Owls are also rarely found in the archaeological record. To the best of my knowledge, the remains of owls have been found in a small number of Swedish graves. In Denmark, a few depictions of owls have been found on a fibulas and other loose finds, some of which were imported, dating to the migration period and early medieval period.
Some scholars have speculated that owls in the ancient North were considered ill omens, and that body parts of owls "were used with evil intent for magic". This perspective is largely based on Danish folklore, to which we shall return.
Besides Gesta Danorum, owls are only sporadically found in Old Danish literature. The word ugglæ is found chiefly as a byname, the name of a ship, and in translations of foreign literature. One poem does mention a "wretched owl", which might indicate a negative characterization of owls in general.
In Danish folklore, the owl is universally considered an evil omen. If one hears an owl screeching outside a house, or if an owl is seen sitting on a house or knocks on the window, it is a certain sign that someone in that household will soon die. This belief is attested already in the 1500's, and remained robust until the beginning of the 20th century.
Saxo Grammaticus occupies a unique literary and cultural position, situated between Classical literature and Old Norse traditions. Gesta Danorum serves as a bridge between the classical historical narratives of ancient Rome and the rich mythological tapestry of Old Norse sagas. In many ways, Saxo's authorship reflects the complex cultural identity of Denmark during his time, caught between its historical roots and the emerging influences of Christian Europe. Saxo's work thus captures the evolving Danish cultural identity of Denmark, and his authorship stands as a testament to the dynamic interplay between different literary and cultural currents in the medieval North.
I have identified eight works by five Classical authors that we know Saxo read, in which owls appear. Horace's Odes, Justin's Epitoma, Lucan's Pharsalia, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Statius' Thebaid, and Virgil's Aeneid, Eclogues and Georgics. While the owl is not characterized in a uniform manner in these works, it is overwhelmingly depicted as an evil omen connected to witchcraft, misfortune and death. The owl in Classical literature thus corresponds to the owl in later Danish folklore; whether this connection is a result of influence from Classical literature or a confluence of traditions is anyone's guess. And now, let us dive into what Gesta Danorum has to say:
Owls in dreams: Book I.8.23-I.8.24 & book XIV.1.10.
The apparition of Haddingus' dead wife appeared before him while he slept, and sang thus:
A beast born to you will tame the wild animals' frenzy,
its grim jaws will destroy the fierce wolves.
But shortly afterwards she added:
Take caution: from you has sprung a bird harmful to you,
a hostile and savage owl, a swan with melodious voice.In the morning, the king shook off his sleep and explained his vision to an experienced interpreter of dreams. He interpreted the wolf as the king's son, who would be fierce, while the swan signified his daughter. He foretold that the first would be baleful to his foes, while the other would be deceitful to her father. The outcome agreed with the augury.
We find ourselves in the last half of Gesta Danorum's first book, which is largely dedicated to the hero Hadingus. Much ink has been devoted to interpreting his story. Scholarly interpretations range from an otherwise unknown *Haddingja saga, pure fabrication, dioscuric relic, and Georges Dumézil’s frankly ludicrous idea that it is an euhemerized biography of Njǫrðr.
*Haddingja saga consists of a series of loosely connected episodes often involving supernatural elements set primarily in Norway and the Baltic region. The "saga" includes elements such as foster brotherhood, divination, pagan sacrifices, gory battles and a number of supernatural agents, which makes the narrative appear as a sort of prototypical legendary saga. In Axel Olrik’s words, "one will hardly find within Icelandic literature itself any fiction which to such an extent bears all the characteristics of the 'legendary sagas' as does the Haddingsaga - right down to the interest in the sacrifices and burial customs of the Swedes" (Olrik, Kilderne til Sakses Oldhistorie, 1894, p. 2).
The owl - or rather, the mention of an owl - appears in a dream. Dreams play a prevalent and crucial role in Old Norse literature, serving as predictors of future events, driving the plot forward, and unveiling supernatural concepts and beliefs embedded in medieval Icelandic culture. According to Gabriel Turville-Petre, “among no people in Europe is the cult of dreams so deeply rooted. In no literature are dream-symbols more sophisticated, nor their interpretation more subtle and intricate” (Turville-Petre, “Dreams in Icelandic Tradition”, Folklore 69.2 (1958), p. 93).
Dreams occur regularly throughout Gesta Danorum as well. Many are pulled from the very same fabric as the Icelandic sagas, while others are local church traditions and even personal anecdotes from Saxo’s patron, archbishop Absalon. As an extremely well read man of the church, Saxo was also familiar with prophetic dreams in hagiographic literature. I count a total of 16 dreams in Gesta Danorum (the Oxford edition only counts 10! Rubbish!); the only non-prophetic dream is Balder getting bullied by ghosts in book 3. The words of Haddingus’ dead wife of course come true; in a lengthy paragraph rich in parallelisms, their daughter Ulfhild persuades her low-ranking husband Guthorm to attempt to assassinate the king. Their attempt at regicide is foiled, but serves as a prefiguration of the succesful betrayal of king Rolf in book II.
The passage is rich in animal symbolism. Haddingus’ son appears as a wolf, an animal that in saga dreams usually represent foes. Wolves get a bad rap in Gesta Danorum too (more on that another time), but protagonists will occasionally refer to themself and their followers as wolves. Ulfhild appears as both swan and owl. Swans always represent women in saga dreams, and are associated with beautiful women in saga literature. The prophecy in the dream foretells that Ulfhild will be a fair woman (= swan) skilled at persuading others (= melodious voice, see above), but her intent is that of the ominous owl; a wretched omen of death within the household. The verse thus offers a brief but full characteristic of Ulfhild.
Ominous owl dreams are not confined to Denmark’s earliest legendary age; according to Saxo, the life of king Eric II the Ever-memorable (~1090-1137) was once saved by correctly interpreting a dream involving hostile owls as a dark omen:
Once, Eric's life was saved by a dream told by one of his bodyguards. When he had decided to sail from the strait of Sleswic to Zealand, one of the sailors dreamt in his sleep that he was riding across the ridges of desolate mountains on a completely unruly horse, racing swiftly until he was thrown headlong into the darkness of the valleys, where a great host of owls tore him to pieces with their talons. When he jokingly told this to his shipmates in the morning, Eric interpreted the vision as a premonition of danger, and would not have him as a companion on the voyage, and transferred himself to another ship. And when his companions were shipwrecked and perished, he remained safe, and rejoiced that he had preferred to trust his safety to another ship than his own.
We find in this passage the common Nordic identification of horses and ships (see fx “hafs hestar” in a poem from Ragnars saga loðbrókar). The dark valley, evidently symbolizing the sea, also has parallels in Edda’s “hann reið níu nætr døkkva dala ok djúpa”, and serves as a recurring element in the Christian visionary landscape. I am not sure if the owls who deliver the death blow also have some obvious interpretation, but it is apparent that they too function as a dire omen.
Anti-social avians: Book V.3.3-V.3.4.
There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Due to King Frothi’s young age, the kingdom is ruled by an assembly of evil counselors, unjust, murderous, rapist traitors, the chief of whom is Grep. For convoluted reasons, the Norwegian protagonist, Eric the Eloquent, sets sail for Denmark to seek out Frothi’s court. Upon learning of Eric’s landing, Grep sets out to engage him in a verbal quarrel—a senna. We pick up the thread after the initial Identification phase:
Grep:
You are as full of quarrels as a rooster is with filth,
smelling strongly of shit, that is, if you're not already stinking with crime.
It is impossible to make a case against a clown
who thrives on the fickleness of empty words!Eric:
By Hercules, unless I'm mistaken, foolish talk said by someone
often rebounds on he who said it himself!
Through the just exertion of the gods,
words poured out with too little learning have a habit of returning to their author.
When we first detect the wolf's suspicious ears,
we believe the wolf itself is near.
No one believes we should trust a person who has shown himself devoid of faith,
one whom rumour has pronounced guilty of treason.Grep:
Shameless lad, you shall pay the price for your thoughtless speech!
You lost owl, you blind night bird!
You will regret belching out these mad words,
this unholy rant, when misfortune causes your ruin!
Your lifeless and bloodless corpse will feed the ravens,
a meal for wild animals, the plunder of a greedy bird!Eric:
The coward's predictions and the usual desires of the wicked
were never contained within their proper bounds.
He who deceives his lord and devices foul schemes,
will deceive himself and his comrades.
Whoever fosters a wolf in his house is considered to be
feeding a robber, the bane of his own household.
Even from this brief excerpt, a certain difference of style emerges: Eric frequently employs proverbial wisdom, some of which can be traced back to texts such as Hávamál, as well as the medieval and early modern collections of proverbs by Peder Laale and Peder Syv. In contrast, Grep relies on aggressively hurling abuse at his opponent. Saxo notes that Grep typically overcame his opponents not through skill, but by a torrent of insults. It comes as no surprise that Eric defeats Grep, who rides back to Frothi’s hall and announces his defeat, seeking permission from the king to use sorcery against Eric. Martinez-Pizarro labels this as "an absurd course of action," a judgment that might be justified if we were to expect actions from well-rounded modern fictional characters rather than two-dimensional figures from the pages of legendary sagas. Moreover, Grep is a self-professed idiot, as evident in his boastful statements during the Identification phase:
Those men have special strength, and their household spirit is royal,
who have never left their own homes.
This would be a comically absurd claim to a medieval Nordic audience. The word for fool/idiot was heimskr, literally “homish”, — one who has never left his village. The word even carried negative moral connotations. And this is how Grep characterizes himself! Absurd and cartoonish actions are exactly what we should expect from this Wormtongue x Gargamel-character. Grep’s sole purpose is to serve as a corrupt court parasite, destined to be rooted out by the protagonist.
The verbal difference between Grep and Eric is also reflected in their choice of animal rhetoric. Grep employs avian terms (rooster, owl, threats involving carrion birds), while Eric speaks of wolves. A curious parallel to Haddingus’ dream!
Grep’s comparison of Eric with a rooster functions on several levels. Firstly, we might detect an implicit juxtaposition of Eric’s words with the crowing of a rooster. Secondly, the comparison suggests a relation to a passage from Seneca the Younger’s Apocolocyntosis that Saxo alludes to later in Gesta Danorum (VII.9.7):
Claudius, seeing a mighty man before him, forgot his trifling and understood that here he had not quite the same pre-eminence as at Rome, where no one was his equal: the rooster is mightiest on his own dunghill.
Here we find the relation between roosters and filth, and thus also an intertextual reference on Saxo’s part to a similar situation: a man unexpectedly encountering his better.
Before threatening Eric with becoming carrion (more on that in a future post), Grep refers to him as an owl. Keeping in mind the idea of owls being omens of death, Grep is surprisingly accurate! Eric’s arrival indeed leads to not only a death in the household but also the demise of Grep and his evil kinsmen. There is an ironic undercurrent to all of Grep’s avian language: in the end, it turns out that he is the rooster who was only powerful on his own midden heap; the owl symbolized his death; and ultimately, he became the meal for wild animals.
What a hoot it has been.
Literature:
Bourns, Timothy J. S. - Between Nature and Culture: Animals and Humans in Old Norse Literature.
Brøndegaard, Vagn J. - Folk og flora.
Gering, Hugo & Barend Sijmons - Die Lieder der Edda.
Hansen, Aage - Om Peder Laales danske ordsprog.
Jennbert, Kristina - Animals and Humans. Recurrent symbiosis in archaeology and Old Norse religion.
Kallstenius, Gottfrid - “Nordiska ordspråk hos Saxo”.
Martinez-Pizzaro, Joaquin - “An Eiríks þáttr málspaka? Some Conjectures on the Source of Saxo's Ericus Disertus”
Olrik, Axel - Kilderne til Sakses Oldhistorie.
von See, Klaus et al., Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda 5.
Turville-Petre, Gabriel - “Dreams in Icelandic Tradition”.