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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 jejunae canis, plumamque nocturnae strigis" were necessary for Canidia's incantations.
Indeed, human wretches in the shape of body-snatchers seem here in England to have usurped the office of the owl in our churchyards; "et vendunt tumulis corpora rapta suis." Up to the year 1813, the barn owl had a sad time of it at Walton Hall. Its supposed mournful notes alarmed the aged housekeeper.
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.
Such are the memories of those who best remember him. To those who were young children while his last years went by he seemed a kind of mystical embodiment of the lakes and mountains round him a presence without which they would not be what they were. And now he is gone, and their untouched and early charm is going too. Heu, tua nobis Paene simul tecum solatia rapta, Menalea!
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.
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