Talk:Strix (mythology)

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The way the Strix were described as nocturnal birds that suckled their young and drank blood, it sounds as if the Strix was actually a vampire bat. Perhaps the ancient Greeks had encountered some vampire bats that had somehow managed to get to Europe from South America. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.252.34 (talkcontribs) 01:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that could be a theory ... but Romans were not sheltered to the existence of all forms of bats... so calling it a nocturnal bird would seem as though it looked more bird then bat ... this assuming that they had a common name for bats. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lordstrix (talkcontribs) 07:43, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the article, it mentions that Pliny explicitly stated it wasn't a bat. Apparently, the Romans thought bats were birds though, so perhaps some behavior might have bled over. Corvus sapiens (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please provide any source of information that "strzyga" came to Slavic cultures via Gorals? --K.lalinea (talk) 00:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Creature or word?[edit]

  1. Does this really qualify as a creature in its own right? It appears the name of the creature was simply the Latin word for "owl", and all owls were considered to share the characteristics described in this article. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to have an article like Wolves in folklore, religion and mythology for owls, with a section about Ancient Rome, in which the Roman view on the creature is described, rather than keeping a separate article about the Latin word for owl?
  2. I have issues with the use of Category:Vampires on this article. Although there seems to be a linguistic relation to the words used by several Slavic languages for vampires, the owl of roman mythology, according to this article, exhibits no commonality with the vampire, other than being nocturnal, and the word apparently also came to be used for "witch" in several Slavic languages. I consider the Strix-Vampire connection far too weak to warrant categorization as a vampire. Yours, Ciaraleone (talk) 21:22, 24 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciaraleone: "Strix" was the Greek word for a specific type of owl that never existed. The word bled into other languages to describe a distinct entity and not real owls. I'd say it would be okay to have a separate article since the idea of strixes evolved past owls and the article Werewolf exists separately from Wolf. Corvus sapiens (talk) 17:55, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Blood[edit]

Currently the information that striges were believed to feed on blood is unsourced. Blood isn't mentioned in the body of the article, and the Greek or Latin sources need to be identified.--Kiyoweap (talk) 17:02, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]