Another simile for silence, here combined murderously with talons sharp as black frost.  See other silent similes by Williamson and by Charlotte Bronte.

‘Silent as snow and fog, staring like the Northern Lights, taloned like black frost, the Arctic Owl flew over the Sharshook and dropped upon Fang-over-lip, but the snarl and the snap of teeth drove him up again.’

Source: Henry Williamson, Tarka the Otter: His joyful water-life and death in the two rivers, illus. C.F. Tunnicliffe (Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1976 (1927)), p. 115

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