This excerpt is from Strix: Die Geschichte eines Uhus (1921) and is here freshly translated.
In the far depths of the great Föhrden forests, where the trees of light and shadow branch into each other in confusion, a high hill rises steeply.
In the far depths of the great Föhrden forests, where the trees of light and shadow branch into each other in confusion, a high hill rises steeply.
This excerpt is from Strix: Die Geschichte eines Uhus (1921) and is freshly translated.
It extends around a small forest moor so that the morning sun shines on its western side and the evening sun on its eastern side, while the midday sun only touches its summit.
On the north side of the hill, right against the wall, stands an old dead oak between thorns and scrub.
It was once a giant oak, a colossus of a tree; now it is hollow—the core has rotted away and collapsed completely, so that a house has been created in the tindery trunk, as it were.
It smells sour and soapy inside, like ticks.
Time dwells here and bears witness to every second, whetting its teeth and eating what time before it has left.
About halfway up the trunk, on the side of the old oak tree facing the moor, a large hole gapes in the belly of the tree.
A downy feather flutters in a cobweb at the upper edge of the opening.
Deep down in the hole, which, in relation to the sunlight, is positioned like the hill itself—the western wall gets morning sun, the eastern wall gets evening sun, while the back wall never catches the glimmer of a ray—sits a giant bird, and depending on the path of the sun across the sky, it moves from one shadow to the other.
It is a nocturnal bird of prey—a large, brown-feathered eagle owl.
It has chosen this old oak here in the district with good reason—here it sits, as it were, in the ear of the forest; every sound that penetrates from outside over the lake passes between the hill walls and into its hole.
It is a fat, powerful female eagle owl.
Its head is as large as that of the largest wild cat, cut off too flat at the front to form the most beautiful face.
The beak is strong and curved, and the edges are as sharp as a pair of garden shears. They can expertly carve a roast and dissect a piece of game in no time. Rip, rip—and they have even cut through the thighbones of a tough old hare.
This great eagle owl doesn’t catch its prey, it slaughters it!
A wreath of feathers stands out from the edges of the yellow bill like a bristling moustache. It plays its part in humanely and considerately misleading the poor victim, who, in the fight for his life, tries to form an opinion of his opponent’s large gullet.
The maw is enormous—but it can only be seen when the eagle owl opens it.
The corners of the mouth go all the way behind the eyes and almost end at the ears; they open up a fiery red, steaming maw that transforms the relatively narrow funnel into an enormous sack in which an entire barn rat can disappear.
On top of the head, around the ear holes, which are enormous in relation to their size in other birds, the feathers are ingeniously arranged so that they form an umbrella, as it were, against which sound waves can strike.
The hearing of the great owl is so acute that it can hear a mouse chewing and grass being snipped, and it can even hear every movement and every beat of a moth’s wings.
Above the ear tufts, two wild and threatening feathers rise up like a lynx’s ears.
But the eyes are the most fearsome thing about this face. They are a magnificent yellow with a reddish outer rim; the owl can, as it were, put fire and blood into them, make them glow and sparkle, so that the victim is paralyzed when it suddenly catches its eye.
It is so large that when it glides over the treetops at dawn or dusk, it resembles a small cloud—a cloud that is black and has strange fibers at the edges. Its body is like that of a goose, and its strength is equal to that of a golden eagle. She has wings like shovels and thighs as muscular as any male fox; they can give momentum to her nocturnal wanderings across the forest floor and fire to her grip when she catches.
Her talons, which can get right to the bottom even through oak bark, are finger-thick, and when she fully spreads them, they almost have the span of a man’s hand—the bulges under them resemble swelling pillows and a long, plump, sickle-shaped claw protrudes from each of them, like a small Turkish scimitar.
She is literally sitting in down and feathers.
Dusk has sprinkled her with pepper and salt, and night has painted her wings and back with a black brush. Along the center of the thick, broad chest runs a whitish line that widens at the top under the throat into a spot. That is the only really light color on it; it is, as it were, a memory of the splendor of the day, of the light of the sun—it does not want to let go of it completely.
It is sunny and warm in the middle of the day.
The owl sits, replete and sleepy, slumped over its perch, its long pinions spread like a warming petticoat over its talons.
The large, round head with the mighty tufts of feathers is pulled all the way down to the body—this gives the face a somewhat grumpy, unapproachable look.
Like a large rootstock, it protrudes from the hollow trunk.
The finches can squeak, the woodpecker can tap, and the stag can scream under her tree—she doesn’t hear it. But if a dog yaps in the distance, the rolling of a cart or the sound of an axe can be heard—immediately it trembles in the tufts of feathers, they bristle threateningly like goat horns on its head, gradually becoming drooping ears like those of a melancholy pig, and finally lying back, all the way down to its neck, like those of a wild, snappy horse.
Outside, over the forest moor, the air shimmers with light; it is so sun-white out there, so full of day and life.
Fire-glowing stinging flies suddenly appear, stand still for a moment and glow, and then disappear like shooting stars into the shadows. Large, shimmering dragonflies buzz and rock across the water, spiraling upwards and swooping into swarms of gnats with sudden turns and unexpected movements, causing their stiff, transparent wing covers to crackle in the fast flight.
Then a swarm of red butterflies rises from a water lily leaf. Like leaves in a cloud of withered foliage suddenly caught by the wind, they stand above the earth’s elevations—the dust on their untouched wings glistens and shines as they drift on the wind in a silent sun dance, circling around each other, until they finally mate, two by two.
Then a flight of white butterflies mingles with the red ones, disrupting the happily concluded wedding game. Now they all float down and sit with outstretched wings on each iris bud. It looks as if all the buds have blossomed at once.
And sky-blue wood pigeons flit to and fro from the dipping places, and jet-black coots flap and quack over pools of water, while dew-gray young herons practice the patience and craft of fishing between the flickering of the reeds.
It’s daytime outside; there’s life in the forest moor.
But inside the tree trunk it is dark and cold. The furrowed walls, which have the same dull color as bleached bones and are bumpy from knots of tinder and putrid growths, are teeming with larval passages and wormholes. Twigs and blown-off leaves have accumulated, and thick, wool-stocking-like spider webs, which bend in the draft, cover the walls of the bark like mysterious curtains.
Occasionally, a strip of sunlight finds its way through a crack and draws a fantastic spot of light on the opposite wall. A few shaggy spiders come to life, a shield-armored woodlouse quickly curls up, while a bunch of sulfur-yellow stink mushrooms, which have been assigned a place to live in here, stick their necks out of cracks in the darkness.
The wind chatters incessantly with the old, dead oak; it does not grant it peace, but continues to torment it. When the tree groans so pitifully, the owl stretches and shakes in its sleep—the creaking of the old wood does it so much good.
Suddenly, a strange, persistent scratching penetrates to her through the hole.
The sound increases.
The dull thud of moss clods, torn from the bark, and falling among the leaves below the tree, strikes her eardrums like blows.
Someone is coming up to her!
At that moment, the owl is wide awake.
It quickly makes its way up to her in a circular corkscrew motion, just as if a woodpecker were visiting her tree home in the morning. Now the noise is close behind her back; she hears the dry wood of the trunk creaking, and it resounds in the hollow tree like in an empty barrel.
The owl straightens up and grows twice as large. It sheds its cushions, as it were, and its previously thick, puffed-up body becomes slender and long.
Suddenly, a small, elongated, snake-like predator in maroon fur glides silently through the entrance hole.
Then, from the tinder darkness below, it glows like a magical ember. An electric current, created from tension and excitement, ignites magical sparks in the owl’s bright yellow eyes, and it opens its mighty maw and suddenly lets out a fearsome hiss.
The sleek predator jumps back; in long leaps it chases headlong down the trunk and disappears in wild flight.
The pine marten is the most bloodthirsty predator in the forest. But he is still so young that he can make such mistakes.
He had hoped to catch a squirrel in the hollow trunk up there, or at least a sick, old jay.
Now he quickly makes himself invisible, quite confused by his mistake.
All the inhabitants of the forest know the great brown-feathered night bird—the flying wolf, with the human face and the beacons pointing straight ahead that have the power of the gaze.
She is the tyrant of the high forest, who demands her tax from everyone, from the deer calves down to the mice.
They shun her, they fear her—Strix Bubo, the great eagle owl.
