Omen

• Omen is connected to Prophecy.

  An omen is a happening read as a sign; prophecy is often the name for what the sign is said to mean. They meet without being identical.

  connected to · interpretive · documented

• Omen is used in Divination.

  Divination is the craft of asking; an omen may arrive unasked. Reading the unasked thing is still a technique.

  used in · interpretive · culturally specific

• Divination is connected to Omen.

  Some divination waits on omens; some makes lots. The unasked sign and the asked question are different techniques.

  connected to · interpretive · culturally specific

• Prophecy is connected to Omen.

  An omen can be treated as a prophecy that arrived without being asked. Delphi’s asked answer is another institution.

  connected to · interpretive · culturally specific

European folklore

• Omen is associated with Raven.

  European folk belief can treat a raven’s cry as an omen. That is a bird-omen, not Huginn and not a Mesopotamian eclipse series.

  associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

• Omen is associated with Crow.

  Folk speech often lets crow stand in for raven as a bird of ill luck. The blur is English; the two birds remain two animals.

  associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

Mesopotamian tradition

• Omen appears in Mesopotamian tradition.

  Eclipse and other celestial omens are a known Mesopotamian genre. They sit beside Gilgamesh, not inside it.

  appears in · interpretive · culturally specific

• Star is associated with Omen.

  Mesopotamian omen literature treats some celestial appearances as signs for king and land. That is a cuneiform technical genre, not Ptolemy’s natal chart.

  associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

• Eclipse is associated with Omen.

  Where an eclipse is treated as a sign, it is an omen. Mesopotamian series and later handbooks disagree on what it signs.

  associated with · interpretive · culturally specific