Aural death omens that are believed to be harbingers of doom across cultures around the globe. Tune into some of the sounds of death on this episode of Unpleasant Dreams. That is, if you dare.

Cassandra Harold is your host. EM Hilker is our principal writer and researcher with additional writing by Cassandra Harold. Jim Harold is our Executive Producer.

Unpleasant Dreams is a production of Jim Harold Media.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

There’s something of the foreboding in an unexpected sound piercing an otherwise placid stillness; perhaps it’s an eerie hoot borne through the evening hush, or the lull of the afternoon suddenly shaken by a grandfather clock chiming loudly off-time. It might be a mysterious whistling where there ought not be anyone to whistle, or a heavy knocking from an empty doorway. It chills the blood and brings to mind strange, dark suspicions of things to come.

Aural death omens. Those sounds that herald the approach of death. Common across cultures all over the world, generations of people have heard them and known, deep down, that they signal an ending. Sometimes it’s the cry of an animal; sometimes it’s the full brassy ring of a bell or the chime of an old broken clock, or an inexplicable knocking or a strange, ghostly figure.

Aural death omens can often take the form of an animal messenger.

Perhaps one of the most interesting living aural death omens was made famous in Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Tell-Tale Heart:

“He was still sitting up in the bed listening; –just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.”

The “death watches” being referred to were, of course, the deathwatch beetle, a woodboring beetle that makes a peculiar tap-tap-tap sound from within the walls of the home or building they’ve infested. As author Laura Martisiute suggests, the beetles’ tap-tap-tapping became associated with the long sleepless vigils held by the bedsides of the dying, during which the sounds of the beetle would persist throughout the otherwise quiet night. Over time, people came to believe that the tap-tap-tap was forecasting death rather than simply accompanying it, and they came to dread it… during the long, silent nights.

Birds, the natural predator of beetles, are also a common source of aural death omens. Owls in particular are generally seen as magical birds for both good and ill across many countries and cultures. And as such, they are also commonly considered death-signalling birds across vast geographical expanses. The Hottentot in Southern Africa believe that the hooting of an owl predicts death, as do a number of Native American tribes, and people in Mexico and India. A relative to the owl, the tawny frogmouth, also has a cry that portends death throughout Asia and Australia.

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