Many references to ravens exist in world lore and literature. Most depictions allude to the appearance and behavior of the wide-ranging common raven (Corvus corax). Because of its black plumage, croaking call, and diet of carrion, the raven is often associated with loss and ill omen. Yet, its symbolism is complex. As a talking bird, the raven also represents prophecy and insight. Ravens in stories often act as psychopomps, connecting the material world with the world of spirits.
French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss proposed a structuralist theory that suggests the raven (like the coyote) obtained mythic status because it was a mediator animal between life and death.[1] As a carrion bird, ravens became associated with the dead and with lost souls. In Swedish folklore, they are the ghosts of murdered people without Christian burials and, in German stories, damned souls.[2]
The Raven has appeared in the mythologies of many ancient peoples. Some of the more common stories are from those of Greek, Celtic, Norse, Pacific Northwest, and Roman mythology.
In Greek mythology, ravens are associated with Apollo, the God of prophecy. They are said to be a symbol of bad luck, and were the gods’ messengers in the mortal world. According to the mythological narration, Apollo sent a white raven, or crow in some versions, to spy on his lover, Coronis. When the raven brought back the news that Coronis had been unfaithful to him, Apollo scorched the raven in his fury, turning the bird's feathers black.
According to Livy, the Roman general Marcus Valerius Corvus (c. 370–270 BC) had a raven settle on his helmet during a combat with a gigantic Gaul, which distracted the enemy's attention by flying in his face.[3]
The raven (Hebrew: ; Koine Greek: Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: κόραξ) is the first species of bird to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible,[4] and ravens are mentioned on numerous occasions thereafter. In the Book of Genesis, Noah releases a raven from the ark after the great flood to test whether the waters have receded (Gen. 8:6–7). According to the Law of Moses, ravens are forbidden for food (Leviticus 11:15; Deuteronomy 14:14), a fact that may have colored the perception of ravens in later sources. In the Book of Judges, one of the Kings of the Midianites defeated by Gideon is called "Orev", which means "Raven". In the Book of Kings 17:4–6, God commands the ravens to feed the prophet Elijah. King Solomon is described as having hair as black as a raven in the Song of Songs 5:11. Ravens are an example of God's gracious provision for all His creatures in Psalm 147:9 and Job 38:41. (In the New Testament as well, ravens are used by Jesus as an illustration of God's provision in Luke 12:24.)
Philo of Alexandria (first century AD), who interpreted the Bible allegorically, stated that Noah's raven was a symbol of vice, whereas the dove was a symbol of virtue (Questions and Answers on Genesis 2:38).
In the Talmud, the raven is described as having been only one of three beings on Noah's Ark that copulated during the flood and so was punished.[5] The Rabbis believed that the male raven was forced to spit.[6] According to the Icelandic Landnámabók a story similar to Noah and the Ark Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson used ravens to guide his ship from the Faroe Islands to Iceland.
Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer (chapter 25) explains that the reason the raven Noah released from the ark did not return to him was that the raven was feeding on the corpses of those who drowned in flood.[7]
The name of the important Frankish King Guntram means "War Raven".
According to the legend of the fourth-century Iberian Christian martyr Saint Vincent of Saragossa, after St. Vincent was executed, ravens protected his body from being devoured by wild animals, until his followers could recover the body. His body was taken to what is now known as Cape St. Vincent in southern Portugal. A shrine was erected over his grave, which continued to be guarded by flocks of ravens. The Arab geographer Al-Idrisi noted this constant guard by ravens, for which the place was named by him كنيسة الغراب "Kanīsah al-Ghurāb" (Church of the Raven). King Afonso Henriques (1139–1185) had the body of the saint exhumed in 1173 and brought it by ship to Lisbon, still accompanied by the ravens. This transfer of the relics is depicted on the coat of arms of Lisbon.
A raven is also said to have protected Saint Benedict of Nursia by taking away a loaf of bread poisoned by jealous monks after he blessed it.
In the legends about the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, depicting him as sleeping along with his knights in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountain in Thuringia or the Untersberg in Bavaria, it is told that when the ravens cease to fly around the mountain, he will awake and restore Germany to its ancient greatness. According to the story, the Emperor's eyes are half-closed in sleep, but now and then, he raises his hand and sends a boy out to see if the ravens have stopped flying.[8]
In the Qur'an's version of the story of Cain and Abel, a raven is mentioned as the creature who taught Cain how to bury his murdered brother, in Al-Ma'ida (The Repast) 5:31. [9]
The story, as presented in the Quran and further postulated in the hadith, states that Cain, having murdered Abel, was bereft of a means of disposing of his brother's body. While scanning the surroundings for a solution, Cain noticed two ravens, one dead and the other alive. The still-living raven began digging the ground with its beak until a hole had been dug up, in which it buried its dead mate. Witnessing this, Cain discovered his solution, as indirectly revealed by God.
To the Germanic peoples, Odin was often associated with ravens. Examples include depictions of figures often identified as Odin appear flanked with two birds on a 6th-century bracteate and on a 7th-century helmet plate from Vendel, Sweden. In later Norse mythology, Odin is depicted as having two ravens Huginn and Muninn, serving as his eyes and ears – huginn meaning "thought" and muninn meaning "memory". Each day the ravens fly out from Hliðskjálf and bring Odin news from Midgard.
The Old English word for a raven was hræfn; in Old Norse it was hrafn; the word was frequently used in combinations as a kenning for bloodshed and battle. "Hrafn" was also used as a given name, or a element of a name like "Hrafnkell".
The raven was a common device used by the Vikings. Ragnar Lothbrok had a raven banner called Reafan, embroidered with the device of a raven. It was said that if this banner fluttered, Lothbrok would carry the day, but if it hung lifeless, the battle would be lost. King Harald Hardrada also had a raven banner, called Landeythan (land-waster). The bird also appears in the folklore of the Isle of Man, a former Viking colony, and it is used as a symbol on their coat of arms.
Ravens are prominent in early Welsh mythology, with the Medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin repeatedly associating ravens with battles, bravery and death. The poem refers to the battlefield as the "ravens' feast", with descriptions of the ravens eating the dead bodies of the fallen warriors. In praising the bravery of a warrior named Gwawrddur, the poem's author references his affinity with ravens:[10]
The raven was the symbol of both the House of Rheged and the Kingdom of Rheged.[11] In the Middle Welsh text The Dream of Rhonabwy, King Arthur prepares for the Battle of Mount Badon with his knight Owain of Rheged, Owain is accompanied by a host of ravens and protests three times to the king that they are being attacked by the king's servants.[12]
Ravens are prominent throughout medieval Welsh texts and several characters in Welsh mythology have names associated with corvids and ravens. Brân the Blessed and his sister, Branwen are two of the best known characters from the Mabinogion, both names derive form the Welsh word for raven. According to the Trioedd Ynys Prydein, following Brân's death he commands his men to cut off his head and carry it to "the White Mount, in London, and bury it there". This White mount is often associated with Tower Hill and the fortress that is now the Tower of London's White Tower.[13] [14]
The Celtic legends around Brân and the tower may be the origin of the still-current practice of keeping ravens at the Tower of London. According to English legend, the Kingdom of England will fall if the ravens of the Tower of London are removed.[15] It had been thought that there had been at least six ravens in residence at the tower for centuries. It was said that Charles II ordered their removal following complaints from John Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer.[16] However, they were not removed because Charles was then told of the legend. Charles, following the time of the English Civil War, superstition or not, was not prepared to take the chance, and instead had the observatory moved to Greenwich.
The earliest known reference to a Tower raven is a picture in the newspaper The Pictorial World in 1883,[17] as well as a poem and illustration published the same year in the children's book London Town.[18] This and scattered subsequent references, both literary and visual, which appear in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, place them near the monument commemorating those beheaded at the tower, popularly known as the "scaffold." This strongly suggests that the ravens, which are notorious for gathering at gallows, were originally used to dramatize tales of imprisonment and execution at the tower told to tourists by the Yeomen Warders.[19] There is evidence that the original ravens were donated to the tower by the Earls of Dunraven,[20] perhaps because of their association with the Celtic raven-god Bran.[21] However, wild ravens, which were once abundant in London and often seen around meat markets (such as nearby Eastcheap) foraging for scraps, could have roosted at the Tower in earlier times.[22]
During the Second World War, most of the Tower's ravens perished through shock during bombing raids, leaving only a mated pair named "Mabel" and "Grip." Shortly before the Tower reopened to the public, Mabel flew away, leaving Grip despondent. A couple of weeks later, Grip also flew away, probably in search of his mate. The incident was reported in several newspapers, and some of the stories contained the first references in print to the legend that the British Empire would fall if the ravens left the tower.[23] Since the Empire was dismantled shortly afterward, those who are superstitious might interpret events as a confirmation of the legend. Before the tower reopened to the public on 1 January 1946, care was taken to ensure that a new set of ravens was in place.
In Irish mythology, ravens are associated with warfare and the battleground in the figures of Badb and Morrígan. The goddess Morrígan alighted on the hero Cú Chulainn's shoulder in the form of a raven after his death.[24]
In the Story of Bhusunda, a chapter of the Yoga Vasistha, a very old sage in the form of a crow, Bhusunda, recalls a succession of epochs in the earth's history, as described in Hindu cosmology. He survived several destructions, living on a wish-fulfilling tree on Mount Meru.[25] Crows are also considered ancestors in Hinduism, and during Śrāddha the practice of offering food or pinda to crows is still in vogue.[26]
The Hindu deity Shani (divine personification of Saturn) is often represented as being mounted on a giant black raven or crow.[27] The crow (sometimes a raven or vulture) is Shani's Vahana. As a protector of property, Shani is able to repress the thieving tendencies of these birds. Dhumavati, the widow goddess associated with strife and inauspiciousness, is depicted riding a crow or in a horseless chariot bearing an emblem of a crow.
The raven is the national bird of Bhutan, and it adorns the royal hat, representing the deity Gonpo Jarodonchen (Mahakala) with Raven's head; one of the important guardian deities.
In Persian sacred literature, a bird acted as the emissary for the diffusion of the Zoroastrian religion among the creatures living in Yima's enclosure (vara). The bird's name is given as Karšiptar or Karšift.[28] According to scholarship, its name would mean "black-winged" (from Karši- "black", cognate to Sanskrit kṛṣṇá and Slavic chjerno; and ptar-, cognate to Greek pterón). The name possibly refers to a raven, since this bird plays the role of divine messenger in several mythologies.[29] [30]