The owl, too, has been a symbol of wisdom and doom, causing civilisations to furtively fear that wisdom entering by one door will push them out the other. Real owls are not very clever, however, and compensate for this with eyes the size of intake fans and huge bodies filled mostly with air. The truth of their condition allowed the city of Leeds to feel safe in sticking three of them to their coat of arms, along with a dead sheep in chains.
