This is another of my repeating pattern designs, repeats are a bit of a brain twister to design, but they are lovely! This one is of owls. Owl’s are typically solitary. However in this design I have a parliament of owls. The literary collective noun for a group of owls is a parliament.
Apparently the collective nouns for creatures stems from an English hunting tradition of the Late Middle Ages. By the beginning of the 14th century this creative use of language was already in place. The trend it seems came from France. It became a courtly fashion to extend use these terms and by the 15th century, this tendency had reached exaggerated proportions.
In the Book of Saint Albans (1486) 165 terms are listed, most of them collective nouns for creatures but some for humans,” a fightyng of beggers”,or “a gaggle of women”
The Book of Saint Albans became very popular during the 16th century and was reprinted frequently, some of the collective nouns for creatures have entered the english language, for example, a gaggle of geese, or a swarm of bees.
Some of the more creative collective nouns are less well-known, for example, a Murder of crows or bouquet of pheasants.
Below is the painting in progress on my desk.
For the green background I used a mixture of prussian blue and hookers green to get that deep lovely green!
View cards and prints for sale at Daniel’s Shop, The DM collection
