I will now proceed in Mr. Davies' words, heading each incident with the title given it in the collec
- Date of account
- Published 1911
- Source
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore
- Reference
- Stranger Than Fiction: Being Tales from the Byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore · selected passage 170
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
It is a common belief in Wales that the screeching of barn-owls close to a house is a very bad sign, betokening the approach of death, and certainly it requires no great effort of the imagination to produce a shudder of foreboding as the gloom of an autumn evening is suddenly rent by the weird cry
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIt is a common belief in Wales that the screeching of barn-owls close to a house is a very bad sign, betokening the approach of death, and certainly it requires no great effort of the imagination to produce a shudder of foreboding as the gloom of an autumn evening is suddenly rent by the weird cry. And though I am no believer in what is of course a mere superstition, yet the recollection of it came to my mind on an occasion when I happened to be staying at a country house where a death occurred somewhat unexpectedly. I well remember the incessant and extraordinary noise made by the owls during a few evenings immediately before and after the event, shriek following shriek, often appearing to be just outside the windows; and though every one knew it was only the owls, yet it would be difficult to describe the uncanny, disturbing effect produced on one's mind by such an unearthly-sounding clamour.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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