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The Augustan age furnishes numerous examples. A bone snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch, and a feather from the wing of a night-owl,—“ossa ab ore rapta jejunæ canis, plumamque nocturnæ strigis,”—were necessary for Canidia’s incantations.
"Plumamque nocturnae strigis." We may suppose that in Britain these superstitions are gone for ever, killed and buried by board schools and compulsory education. It is worse in effect, because these men have guns, which their predecessors had not. And it is more wicked, because it is founded on an ignorance for which there is no excuse.
It is enough to remember that in the time of Augustus the jaw bone of a female dog, which had been kept fasting, and a quill plucked from a screech-owl were required for the enchantments of Canidia, ossa ab ore rapta jejunae canis, plumanque nocturna strigis.
The Augustan age furnishes numerous examples. A bone snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch, and a feather from the wing of a night-owl "ossa ab ore rapta jejunae canis, plumamque nocturnae strigis" were necessary for Canidia's incantations.
and the Englishman who continued the Pharsalia, says "Tristia mille locis Stylus dedit omina bubo." Horace tells us that the old witch Canidia used part of the plumage of the owl in her dealings with the devil: "Plumamque nocturnae strigis." Virgil, in fine, joined in the hue and cry against this injured family: