The Cuban Giant Owl Ornimegalonyx was an owl of the Late Pleistocene (126,000 – 11,700 years ago, also known as the Ice Age). We can chalk up mystic depictions of demonic giant walking owls as a stroll down Imagination and Theology Lane.įast forward to Cuba, 1954, where we actually have knowledge of a giant owl. We can safely say that Collin de Plancy and Friends didn’t actually summon Stolas (or any demon) to pose for a sketch artist. With the negative interpretations associated with owls, it makes sense that someone with an interest in both the natural and the spiritual world would have a demon appear as a larger-than-life owl, ready to run you down if you lost your nerve during a demon summoning. Some of these ideas were, well, racist and antisemitic as flock. Bestiaries were not immune to the prevailing attitudes of the day. Owls and their portrayal in bestiaries is a whole other post, but these bestiaries were written in the 12 th – 16 th centuries. It’s not a glowing letter of recommendation. It was common knowledge that owls frequent graveyards and tombs, and their cries are harbingers of an impending death. Barn owls do build up a layer of pellets in their nests when the young are still in house and feeding, but most birds are pretty good at keeping waste out of their nests. The prevailing wisdom of the day, according to the bestiaries, was that owls were dirty, slothful birds that pollute their nests with their own dung. Or how about bees: did you know that bees come from the decay of the putrid flesh of calves or oxen (Isidore of Seville, 7 th century CE)? Some explanations are implausible, others are darn ridiculous, but they were interpretations based on observations made at the time. 1230-1240), that’s where Barnacle Geese come from! British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 36r Did you know the Barnacle Goose grows from trees, dangling from their beaks? According to the Harley Bestiary (c. Bestiaries (no, not bestiality, although the root of both words is the same) depict animals both real and fanciful, from the Amphisbaena (a serpent with a head at either end), to odd interpretations of real animals. Owls appear frequently in the medieval literature, particularly in bestiaries. It is unlikely that Stolas’ teeny owl body with those teeny owl wings and itty-bitty tail could haul around those legs during flight (especially while wearing his resplendent crown.) There’s a lot going on with the appearance of Stolas that suggests he is a walker. The dimensions of Stolas are fascinating: the woodcuts of Collin de Plancy show an owl with rather long legs, standing on the ground. Collin de Plancy does not give us a sense of scale but one’s brain does jump to “large,” or at least larger than life, when talking about demons. Most of the demonic entities in the Dictionnaire Infernal (and earlier works on the same subject) appear as human-animal hybrids or large versions of familiar animals. As a field palaeontologist I would find a twenty-six-legion strong field crew very useful.
The geology link of Stolas is what makes the connection of Stolas to paleontology even more interesting. If Stolas were real, he’d likely be a great resource of information for many in astronomy, botany, and geology. I dare you.” Image from Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal. Known for Twenty-six legions general.” Stolas: “Go ahead: run.
“Stolas, great prince of Hell, who appears in the form of an owl when he takes that of a man and shows before the exorcist, he teaches astronomy, as well as the properties of plants and the values of precious stones. Here is my extremely rusty high school French (with a double-check in Google Translate) translation: Vingt-six légions leire connaissent pour general.” “Stolas, grand prince des enfers, qui apparaît sous la forme d’un hibou lorsqu’il prend celle d’un homme et qu’il’se montre devant l’exorciste, il enseigne : l’astronomie, ainsi que les propriétés des plantes et la valeur des pierres -précieuses. Collin de Plancy describes Stolas on page 635-6 of the Dictionnaire Infernal: Stolas is my favorite (is favorite the right word?) character of Collin de Plancy’s demon mythology from the perspective of both an owl fanatic and a palaeontologist. Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal when I searched for “giant owls.” I was looking at adaptations that cursorial (ground-running or walking) birds have in the tarsometarsus bones. My research takes me down a few interesting rabbit holes.
#Oration of the wolf dictionnaire infernal series
It’s time for the next installment of my OWLS! series of blog posts! This one is going to be a little bit different from my other posts…although, if you’ve read any of my Bigfoot or ghost posts you may not be surprised at the theme of this post.