In Portuguese, there’s the composite word “alma penada”, usually translated to English as “restless soul” or “wandering soul”.

The first word, “alma”, is a pretty straightforward word, it’s Portuguese for soul. Conversely, the second word, “penada”, can possess (pun intended) some double entendre: it’s originally meant as “alguém sobre quem recaiu uma pena” (someone unto whom a penance befell), with “pena” being penance/punishment, but “pena” can also mean feather, so “penada” would be “feathered” (“having feathers”).

The latter entendre makes me wonder about the actual origin of “alma penada”, as I imagine its first coinage… Year’s 1348, Portugal. Humans are dying from The Plague, rodents are everywhere… a Portuguese Plague Doctor, wearing their beak mask which kind of looks like a corvid, wanders alone, late at night, somewhere amidst the Azorean woods, trying their best to be as far as possible from the ongoing pandemic… they hear a chilling screeching, coming from the top of the trees. The Plague Doctor tries to look up but can’t see a thing, despite the bright full Moon. Taken by curiosity, they come closer to this eerie tree, and the screeching pierces through his hearing again, right before them. They still can’t see a thi… “ow!”, they yell, taken by scare as they finally see a pair of yellow glowing eyes staring at them, moments before the haunting eyes become grumpy and another screeching almost deafens them. Scared but also quite enchanted, the doctor tries to touch the haunting ghost, only for them to realize their finger is phasing through… suddenly, their finger gets fiercefully bitten because they’re looking like an annoying corvid with this Plague Doctor beak mask (and unbeknownst to them, their fingers are tasting like tasty mice). The doctor runs back to the city screaming “ó, uma alma penada!! Uma alma PENADA!!”.

(Trivia: the Portuguese region of Açores features Bubo scandiacus/Snowy owls, owls of which kind of look like those medieval drawings of owls and also miniature Casper ghosts. Like many owl species, they’re mostly made of plumage, hence little feathered spirits. Bubo is both their genus, a word for the swollen lymph nodes caused by “bubonic plague” and an onomatopoeia for ghosts. Owls and corvids hold some natural rivalry because corvids mob to harass owls, so the owls naturally hate corvids. My memes almost always carry deeper layers of meaning, sorry if I sounded pedantic. An owl is likely watching you now, and will likely bite your earlobes this night)