{"id":42340,"date":"2024-08-08T06:30:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T18:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=42340"},"modified":"2024-08-04T20:20:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T08:20:22","slug":"a-quick-look-at-owls-in-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2024\/08\/08\/a-quick-look-at-owls-in-fantasy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quick Look At Owls in Fantasy"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 4 was International Owl Awareness Day, which prompted reflection on the frequency with which owls feature in Fantasy literature. So in slightly belated recognition of the day, here are a few examples that sprang to mind — starting with Owl (or sometimes ‘Wol’) in AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh<\/strong> books.<\/p>\n

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The Owl Service<\/em> <\/strong>by Alan Garner was published as Middle Grade fiction, but I believe this reworking of the Mabiniogion’s tale of Blodeuwedd, the woman of flowers, has crossover appeal. Needless to say, owls feature strongly in the story’s magic.<\/p>\n

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The owl is the sorceress Polgara’s avatar in David Eddings Belgariad<\/strong> series, and owls are also the symbol of the goddess in Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song for Arbonne<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Owls also feature prominently in CS Lewis’s The Silver Chair<\/em><\/strong>, including a parliament of owls to guide Jill and Eustace on their quest to find Narnia’s lost prince.<\/p>\n

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Mercedes Lackey’s Owl Mage<\/strong> trilogy features a young mage who is rescued by an order called the Hawkbrothers, who bond with birds of prey — most significantly owls, in this particular story.<\/p>\n

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JK Rowling’s Harry Potter<\/strong> series really put owls on the map, though, with a significant degree of magical communication going “by owl.” Harry’s own owl, the snowy-white Hedwig, is an integral part of the story and the series.<\/p>\n

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Harry & Hedwig<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m sure there are many more, so if you have a Fantasy owl you’d like to add, please do leave a comment. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 4 was International Owl Awareness Day, which prompted reflection on the frequency with which owls feature in Fantasy literature. So in slightly belated recognition of the day, here are a few examples that sprang to mind — starting with Owl (or sometimes ‘Wol’) in AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books. The Owl Service by Alan Garner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,19,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy","category-funstuff","category-influences-on-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42340"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42348,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42340\/revisions\/42348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}