Strix Coloring Pages
The strix was the one owl Roman parents really didn't want to see on the windowsill. It looked a lot like the owls you might hear hooting in the trees at night... until you notice the human arms!
Jump to: What Was a Strix? | Bird or Witch? | Baby Proca | Pamphile | Strix to Strega
What Was a Strix?
The strix was a night bird from Roman legend with a big round head, wide staring eyes and a hooked beak. Its claws curved like fishhooks and its wings were soft and grey, so from a distance it looked like any other owl. Its name came from the awful screech it let out after dark, and that was the sound Romans dreaded hearing over the roof.
Striges (that's the plural) were said to go looking for babies left alone in their cradles. That's why so many strix stories happen in a nursery at night, with somebody working hard to keep the doorway safe.
Bird or Witch?
Even the Romans couldn't agree on what a strix really was. Some said they hatched from eggs like any other bird. Others said they were old women who'd used spells to sprout feathers and fly off into the night, which made the strix half owl and half witch.
It's easy to mix up a strix with the harpies, since both are bird-women who snatch people away. The difference is in how they work. Harpies were Greek storm spirits who swooped in by daylight on the gods' orders, while a strix hunted alone at night.
Baby Proca and the Goddess of Doorways
Baby Proca was only five days old when the striges found his cradle. A goddess named Carna came to the rescue, and she didn't bring a sword or a spear. That baby grew up to be the great-grandfather of Romulus and Remus, so in a roundabout way a goddess of doorways saved Rome...
Proca and Carna coloring pages
Pamphile, the Owl Enchantress
A strix might have been a creature of the night, or it might have been a witch who'd changed her shape. Pamphile, from the Roman novel The Golden Donkey, was the second kind. She rubbed on a magic ointment and turned herself into an owl to fly off after dark, and her nosy houseguest Lucius decided he wanted to fly too. Unfortunately, he grabbed the wrong jar...
From Strix to Strega
The strix never really flew away. Romans also called it a striga, and over hundreds of years that word turned into strega, the Italian word for witch. If you've read the picture book Strega Nona, you've already met a very distant relative of the strix, although she's a kindly grandma with a magic pasta pot and not a scary bird at all.
In Romania the same old word became strigoi, the restless spirits of folklore that wander at night and appear in modern video games.
When scientists sorted out the owls, they gave the scientific name Strix to a whole group of wood owls, including the tawny owl and the great grey owl. So the real owls hooting in the trees tonight are carrying a monster's name that's about two thousand years old... though they're hunting mice not trying to get into our windows!
Roman Mythology coloring pages >