However, in that particular morning of 249 BC, the chickens refused to eat - a terrible omen.

It was like a terrible omen.

It could be taken for a terrible omen if Tremane's throne collapsed beneath him in the middle of one of these ceremonies.

It is to Nicholas a shocking act of violence, a terrible omen of what is to come.

Gernot and Gunther talk of the terrible omens of the night and morning.

It was a terrible omen of what was to come.

"The old man standing next to me pronounced it a terrible omen."

A first-foot who arrives empty-handed is a terrible omen - of poverty and loss in the year ahead.

It was a terrible omen, though no one knew what it meant, then.

And terrible omens: The soothsayers say the harvest will be ruined this year.