Brewer's: Pamphyle

(3 syl.). A sorceress who converted herself into an owl (Apuleius). There was another Pamphyle, the daughter of Apollo, who first taught women to embroider with silk.

“In one very remote village lives the sorceress Pamphyle, who turns her neighbours into various animals ... Lucius, peeping ... thro' a chink in the door [saw] the old witch transform herself into an owl.” —Pater: Marius the Epicurean, chap. v.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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