Strix

The strix (plural: striges) appears in both Greek and Roman tradition as a nocturnal creature with an insatiable hunger for the blood and flesh of infants. Roman writers described them as large night-birds with hooked talons who could transform from witches. Ovid records elaborate counter-rituals involving arbutus branches, pig entrails, and vervain to ward them from newborns.

A large nocturnal bird, like a great horned owl, with a harsh screech and enormous talons. Some accounts describe it as able to assume the shape of an old woman. Its eyes glowed in darkness and its beak and claws were perpetually stained with blood.

Could fly silently into homes at night and drain infants of blood. The striges were believed to have the power to curse households and could transform between bird and human form. Their touch caused wasting illness; their screech was an omen of death.