Pamphile Coloring Pages
Pamphile was an enchantress in an old Roman story called The Golden Donkey, and she could turn herself into an owl whenever she liked. She's only in a small part of the book, but she's the reason everything goes wrong for its hero, a young man who was far too curious about magic for his own good.
Her story is also one of the reasons witches and owls got tangled up together in people's imaginations, and it has a donkey in it, which always helps.
Jump to: Land of Witches | The Enchantress | The Wrong Jar | Roses
A House in the Land of Witches
Lucius was a young man who loved a good adventure, so when business took him to Thessaly he could hardly sit still.
Thessaly was the part of Greece where witches were supposed to live, and every stone and bird he passed looked to him like it might once have been a person. He was staying in the house of an old man whose wife, Pamphile, was the most powerful enchantress in town.
Everyone warned Lucius to stay well away from her magic. A sensible young man would have listened. Lucius made friends with the housemaid instead and begged her to tell him everything she knew.
A Peek Through the Door
One evening the housemaid came running with news. Pamphile the enchantress was planning to turn into a bird that very night, and if Lucius kept quiet he could watch.
The two of them crept up and peeked through a crack in her door. Pamphile opened a little chest full of tiny jars, chose one and rubbed the ointment all over herself from her head to her toes. She whispered something to her lamp and gave herself a good shake. Soft feathers sprouted along her arms while her nose hardened into a hooked beak, and her fingernails curled into sharp claws. Where Pamphile had stood there was now a big owl. She let out a hoot, hopped onto the windowsill and flew off into the dark to visit a young man she'd taken a fancy to.
The maid whispered that getting back was the easy part. A bath of dill and bay leaves in spring water would turn Pamphile into herself again, because every bit of magic in that house had a cure.
The Wrong Jar
Lucius couldn't stop thinking about it. He wanted wings of his own, and he pestered the maid until she agreed to sneak him some of the owl ointment. She hurried into Pamphile's room, grabbed a jar and pressed it into his hands.
Lucius rubbed it on just the way Pamphile had and flapped his arms, waiting for feathers. Nothing feathery happened at all. His skin turned coarse and hairy and his ears stretched up long. Then his fingers squeezed together into hooves and a tail popped out behind him. Lucius had become a donkey, with his own human thoughts still rattling around inside a very long head.
The poor maid was horrified, but she knew the cure. All he had to do was eat a few fresh roses, and she promised to bring him some first thing in the morning.
A Donkey in Search of Roses
Morning never came the way the maid planned. That night a band of robbers broke into the house, piled their loot onto the donkey in the stable and drove poor Lucius off into the mountains. He'd gone from human houseguest to long-earred get away vehicle in one night!
What followed was months of hauling and hard work as Lucius was sold from one owner to the next. Roses always seemed just out of reach.
At last, on a beach far from Thessaly, the goddess Isis came to him in a dream. She told him to go to her festival in the morning, where a priest would be carrying a crown of roses. Lucius trotted up, took a gentle mouthful of petals and found himself standing on two feet again. He spent the rest of his life serving the goddess who'd helped him, and it's hard to imagine he ever walked past a rose garden again without smiling.
Fun Fact: The Golden Donkey is the only Roman novel that's completely survived (no missing pages!). It was written almost two thousand years ago, and it's still funny today.
More from Pamphile's Story
The Strix
Pamphile's owl wasn't the only one the Romans worried about after dark. The strix was a screeching night owl said to swoop down on nurseries, and nobody could agree whether it was a real bird or a witch in disguise. Luckily, one goddess knew exactly how to keep it out...
Roses
The Romans loved roses so much they held a festival every spring called the Rosalia, when people decorated with armfuls of them. Poor Lucius would have settled for just one...
Witches from mythology Roman Mythology