"As far as Danes and owls go, they also have “ulver i mosen”, which is Danish for “wolves in the marshes”. This was meant to indicate that you should be alert and take care. Makes sense. But in Norwegian “myr” means marsh, and “mose” means moss. And since it’s well known that Danish is impossible to understand, the saying was mistranslated into “ugler i mosen” by Norwegians, which means “owls in the moss”. The phrase survives today, and any Norwegian knows that if there’s owls in the moss, then something mysterious is going on, or something’s amiss or odd or not quite right."
I never knew the origin behind that saying before (“There are owls in the moss” = “Something suspicious is going on”). That is hilarious.
