Strix (mythology)

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Strix, in ancient myth, is a bird of ill omen and a name for witches. In Ovid’s Fasti it appears as a large-headed bird with fixed eyes, a sharp beak, greyish-white wings, and hooked claws. Other sources describe it as dark-colored. A Greek tale calls the strix a nocturnal screamer that stands with its head down and feet up, a creature often linked to owls or bats.

In later folklore the strix is said to lactate foul milk onto babies, a claim Pliny the Elder dismissed as nonsense, though some writers advised garlic on infants to ward it off. Ovid’s striges are presented as dangerous, capable of harming or disfiguring infants; the tale also shows that they might be birds, products of magic, or transformations by witches. In another Greek story, the strix herself does not harm humans, but her cannibalistic sons do; a related metamorphosis tale, recorded by Antoninus Liberalis, has Polyphonte turning into a strix as punishment for cannibalism.

Over time, the strix came to symbolize witches more generally. Its feathers or other parts were said to appear in magical preparations, and the bird became a shorthand for witchcraft in various texts. The term spread across Europe: Latin striga, Italian strega, and related words in Romanian, Albanian, and Slavic languages all echo the same fear of a flying, child-threatening witch. Linnaeus later placed the birds in the genus Strix, though that classification is now known to be inaccurate for barn owls.