night-raven

plural night-ravens

1. A bird active at night, sometimes identified with a specific species such as a night owl or nightjar, and sometimes seen as a separate animal in its own right.

   Cursed creatures, messengers of death, possess the world. / Night-ravens, screech-owls, and voice-killing mandrakes […].

   1613, John Marston, William Barksted, The Insatiate Countess, IV.4

   2 more examples

   sad Horrour with grim hew, / Did alwayes sore, beating his yron wings; / And after him Owles and Night-rauens flew, / The hatefull messengers of heauy things [...].

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   Omens thicken upon us, O Gro. First, the night raven that went widdershins round about the palace of Carcë, that night when the King accepted this challenge, and we were all drunken with wine after our great feasting and surfeiting in his halls.

   1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 18