Also called ornithomancy, taking the auspices, bird omens
Reading the flight, calls and behavior of birds within a marked area of sky as signs. In ancient Rome, official augurs took the auspices before elections and battles; today it survives as a mindful nature practice.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Watch from a respectful distance, stay off private land without permission, and never trap, bait or disturb nesting birds for a sign.
Livy tells that the twins settled who would found the city by watching for birds, Remus from the Aventine and Romulus from the Palatine. Remus saw six vultures first, then Romulus saw twelve, and the quarrel over which sign counted ended in Remus's death.
When wild birds could not be watched, as on campaign, keepers released sacred chickens and fed them. If they ate greedily so that grain fell from their beaks, the sign was good. The method was easy to manipulate, which Cicero, himself an augur, pointed out.
Hittite texts record bird oracles from the thirteenth or fourteenth century BC. In Homer's Odyssey an eagle carrying a dove flies to the right, read as Odysseus returning to destroy the suitors. Greek seers read birds on the right, toward sunrise, as favorable.
Roman augurs were public priests whose job was to learn whether the gods approved of an action, not to predict the future in detail. An augur marked out a templum, a defined area of sky, with his curved staff, the lituus, and watched for signs in thunder, lightning and especially birds. Their college supervised the practice, and the office opened to plebeians around 300 BC. Words like inauguration and auspicious come from it.
Augury mattered in politics, because a flawed auspice could cancel an election or a law. Cicero, who held the office, wrote On Divination in 44 BC, setting out the arguments for and against it. The practice likely came to Rome from the Etruscans, and bird omens appear among the Hittites and the Greeks. Under the emperors the augurs lost political power, and the old public rites ended as Christianity took over in the fourth century.
Make a wish in the second or two that a meteor streaks across the night sky. The custom is widespread, though its often-quoted ancient origin is shaky.
Marking slips of wood with signs, scattering them on a white cloth and reading the ones you pick up. Built from Tacitus's account of Germanic lot-casting and modern rune practice.
When someone in a beekeeping family died, married or was born, a member of the household went to the hives, knocked, and told the bees the news. If the bees were not told, people believed they would leave or die.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
