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The medieval folklore of Britain’s endangered natural world ‘omens’ – from hedgehogs to nightjars

Source link : https://bq3anews.com/the-medieval-folklore-of-britains-endangered-natural-world-omens-from-hedgehogs-to-nightjars/

Because the seasons flip and the nights attract, the nation-state of the British Isles turns out alive with omens: an owl’s screech, or a bat above the hedgerows.

For hundreds of years, such creatures had been solid as messengers of destiny, straddling the boundary between the herbal and the supernatural. But these days, the omens those animals convey are not warnings of ghosts or witchcraft, however of one thing way more tangible: their very own survival.

The very species that when haunted our creativeness and foretold ill-fated futures are actually haunted by way of habitat loss, local weather alternate and power from urbanisation. Within the tales of those creatures, we glimpse each our concern of the wild previous and our accountability for the longer term. Now could be the time to revisit a few of Britain’s iconic “omen animals”, tracing their folklore and asking what their destiny tells us about our shared atmosphere.

Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs, regardless that voted Britain’s favorite mammal, had been prior to now deemed to be milk thieves.

A hedgehog within the medieval Recueil des Croniques d’Engleterre (1471-1483).
Quirk Books

A standard folkloric trust of the early fashionable length, most likely exacerbated by way of the Eu witch hunts, used to be that witches would grow to be into hedgehogs to thieve milk from cows’ udders. This trust used to be so prevalent {that a} marketing campaign to seek and get rid of…

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Author : bq3anews

Publish date : 2025-10-15 01:33:00

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