TTHE TRADITION OF THE RAVEN

Special feature editorial by Druidess

"I have fled in the shape of a raven of prophetic speech" - Talesin

A bird renowned to be of ill omen (perhaps due to its colour), the raven is said to have the worst nature of all birds according to legend, even associated with the Devil. Again perhaps this is because the bird is supposed to have the ability to see the future, hence the expression 'the foresight of a raven'. The American Indians call the raven 'the messenger of death' as it has a very strong sense of smell being able to detect death from a distance. Probably the most famous ravens are at 'The Tower of London'. Tradition has it that should the ravens leave, the Tower and the Monarchy will fall and Britain will fall to her enemy. Some also believe that if they leave the British Royal Family will die. One croaking or flying over a house is said to be a death and sickness omen. If the bird flies around the chimney then someone lying ill inside will not recover from the illness. In Scotland, to hear one croaking before going on a hunt indicates that good fortune will come to the hunt. If seen preening itself then rain is thought by some to be on the way, whilst to see a raven flying towards the sun indicates that hot weather is imminent. Should the eggs be stolen then a rural English belief once held that a baby would soon die. In Yorkshire, children were warned that if they misbehaved the 'Great Black Bird' would carry them off unless their behaviour improved. Edgar Allen Poe's poem 'The Raven' is said by some to reveal the true nature of the bird. To see one raven is lucky, tis true But it's certain misfortune to light upon two And meeting with three is the devil! Because of the wide distribution of the raven throughout the Northern Hemisphere, its shrewdness and opportunistic behavior around man, its all black color, and relatively large size, it is no wonder that man has developed myths and legends associated with this great bird. In societies throughtout the northern hemisphere, with the raven has appeared since ancient times as a prophet, a harbinger of death and doom, a messenger, as well as being strongly associated with storms and floods. Since the crow exhibits certain similar traits, folklore involving ravens and crows has intermingled over time in some cultures. Regarding the association with floods, perhaps the best known is the description of the raven's role on Noah's ark durning the flood depicted in Genesis. In this story the raven is sent off by Noah to see whether or not the waters have subsided - but the raven never returns. Interestingly, there are stories from North America which closely parallel the earlier Babylonian associations of flood and raven. For example, the Algonquin Indians relate a myth which was recorded in 1634 describing how the sun was hunting with wolves when he entered a lake. The lake overflowed and submerged the world. The sun then asked the raven to search out some dry land to make the world again, but the raven could not find any. The raven appeared in similar myths in other early North American cultures, including the Tlingit and other Pacific Northwest nations. Ceremonies depicting such stories were an integral part of some of these societies. Therefore, as Edward Armstrong explains in his fasinating book, The Folklore of Birds, it seems unlikely these myths stemmed from a Christian influence. The raven-flood creation myths are an example of the apparent diffusion or dispersal of a myth around the world. The association of the raven in the flood-creation story also points out its significance as a messenger. In Norse mythology, Odins two ravens, Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory, flew around the world every day to learn of the day's news and then returned to Odin to report to him. In Tibetan legend the raven is the messenger of the Supreme Being, and the Irish felt the bird to be omniscient, using phrases like "raven's knowledge" to mean seeing and knowing all. There are examples from Germany, India, Siberia, Iceland, and elswhere where people are advantaged by speaking with these birds or eavesdropping over the conversation of ravens. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, a raven attempts to help little Gerda look for her lost playmate Kay. "Listen to me," said the raven, "but it is so difficult to speak your language! Do you understand Ravenish? If so, I can tell you much better." Beyond any doubt, the raven is considered first and foremost a bird of evil. Its resonant "kaw" has signaled pending doom throughout history in societies north of the equator. We speak admiringly of a pride of lions, or kindly of a charm of finches, but a terror of ravens and a murder of crows? Somehow it does not seem fair, although opportunistically scavenging and feeding on dead animals makes the association with death obvious. Durning the military invasions and plagues throughout Europe in earlier centuries, the raven dined on human corpses, and they appearently loitered near the sites designated for human executions. The word "ravenstone" means a place of execution in old English. The Germans have a word, "rabenaas," meaning raven's carrion, denoting a person who should be hanged. As Armstrong pointed out, it is not implausible for people to extend the association with death to one where the birds can fortell the coming of tragedy. If a bird can predict tragedy, then it can likely predict good as well, and peoples from many cultures have acknowledged the raven's powers of augury and associated the bird with ghosts and the supernatural. For example, in Swedish folklore, ravens are the ghosts of murdered individuals who have not had a proper Christian burial. And in Germany, ravens were thought to be damned souls. On the other hand, King Arthur supposedly disguised himself as a raven when he traveled about; to kill a raven was very bad luck. That ravens have strange and forboding powers can be documented as far back as the ancient Semite tribes of the Middle East and in Greek mythology dating to hundreds of years before Christ. An inscription from a Babylonian tablet decrees: A raven, the bird that helpeth the gods, In my right hand I hold: A hawk, to flutter in thine evil face. In my left hand I thrust forward Compare this to an ancient British rhyme: If a raven cry just o'er his head Some in the towne have lost their maidenhead. So what are we to make of this bird-creator of the world, scourge of all mankind? Possibly no other species has evoked such strong emotion or found its way more into the psyches of men and women throughout time. It is truly remarkable to consider that the raven could have been at the center of mankind's earliest thoughts on the origin of the earth, and that a raven creation myth subsequently spread around the world. Such a tribute!

The Tower of London

Durning the Second World War, the Tower of London was bombed. The ravens which had lived there for centuries flew away. Winston Churchill, who had been initiated into a Druid Order in 1908, immediately ordered their replacement with young ravens brought from north Wales and the wilds of northwest Scotland. But a first reading of the old tales that mention the raven suggest that it is a bird of ill-omen, bringing the fear of war, death and destruction. To understand Churchill's reasoning, we must turn to the tale of Bran the Blessed, in which the superhuman Bran (whose name means "Raven" or "Crow") asks that his head be cut off and buried on the White Mount in London, facing the direction of France. As long as the head remained buried it would protect the kingdom. The Tower of London was later rasied on the site of the White Mount, and the totem power was transferred from the buried raven-god's head to the presence of actual ravens in the Tower to ensure the kingdom's safety.

Not only Caer Llundain, London, but also Lyons in France had the raven as its totem bird, and both cities were dedicated to the god Lugh, or Lud, who himself is associated with ravens. This god of Light was warned of the approach of his enemies, the Fomorians, by the ravens before the second battle of Magh Tuiredh. The Old English epic Beowulf portrays the raven as the morning bird of joy and light, having helped Beowulf to victory. There is also a tradition that Arthur became a raven after his death, and in Somerset it was the custom to doff your hat to a raven as a mark of respect, for this very reason. Churchill was clearly aware of the importance of the raven as one of the primary totem beasts of Britain. He must have know that ravens are sacred birds whose presence invokes protection. They will warn the forces of light of impending attack as they did Beowulf and Lugh. And they will also strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. For this reason the Celts used the image of the raven on their armor - the most striking example of which is a battle-helmet found in Romania, surmounted by a large figure of a raven with hinged wings. As the warrior rushed forward, the wings would have flapped, striking terror into his foe - or at the least distracting him at a vital moment.

"VERY BLACK IS THE RAVEN, QUICK THE ARROW FROM THE BOW" - Triads

Although the Irish war-goddesses the Badbh and the Morrigan are said to have often appeared on battlefields as ravens - causing fear and havoc among the warriors - a more accurate translation of the name of their totem bird is the hooded or scald-crow. This bird and its close relative the raven are scavengers who would certainly have been attracted to battlefields, and the message of their presence before the confronting armies would have been that in war no one wins except death itself. As the bird of the Goddess in her death aspect, the crow or raven symbolizes the forces of destruction, of katabolism, which are as neccessary to the continuation of life as the forces of creation and anabolism. Because of our fear of death and bloodshed and because of the conflation of the two birds, the folklore and traditions surrounding the raven portray an ambiguous relationship to this natural but painful aspect of life. There is evidence that the fear and rejection of the raven are related not only to its association with death, but also to its association with the Goddess. Raven-women appear throughout Celtic and Arthurian literature, and the "raven knowledge" of the Druid seers, which entailed an ability to see into the future and the past, and beyond the veil of death. The raven as a bird of death or the Underworld was clearly recognized by the burying of ravens with wings outspread at the bottom of pits - such as at Danebury in Hampshire. These ritual pits or shafts symbolized the connection between this world and the Underworld, and the raven was a messenger between the two.

THE RAVEN AS A BIRD OF HEALING

By being able to travel from this world to the next, the raven symbolizes also the power of healing - but the type of healing that comes about through a radical confrontation with the unconscious with the hidden, with the shadow, and with the darker, potentially destructive aspects of the psyche. The raven's association with death becomes an association with depth and thus with depth psychology and the transformative powers of initiation - for such a moment marks to a greater or lesser extent the death of the old self, and the rebirth of a new self. This therapeutic association of the raven explains the occurrence of raven images at some of the Celtic healing sanctuaries, and on Romano-Celtic iconography depicting beneficent divinities. The raven's connection with healing is reinforced when we consider it as a bird of prophecy and divination, integral facets of the healer's art. The raven could travel to the darkest regions of the seeker and healer. The raven has been seen as an oracle for thousands of years. The early Irish Druids divined according to their flight and cries, and as late as 1694 it was reported that a Herefordshire raven uttered a prophecy three times.

NATIVE AMERICAN BELIEF OF RAVEN MEDICINE Those who carry raven medicine also carry a heavy resonsibility to Spirit. Raven is the messenger of magic from the great void where all knowledge waits for us. He is also the symbol of changes in consciousness, of levels of awareness and of preception. He carries the mark of the shape-shifter. He is the carrier of healing energy from distances. Those of you who have asked for messages of light and healing and prayer, have asked for raven medicine. What all of this means to us in the modern-day world is that raven medicine gives you the ability to get inside another's head and heart, and to understand them from the inside out, so to speak. You can "become" that other person because of the depth of your understanding of them, and it is not necessary to be in their physical presence for that to happen. Spiritual healers and counsellors who are skilled in their abilities are using raven power for they have a depth of understanding and empathy not shared by all. Because of this power, they have the ability to actually alter another's perception and behavior. They are able to work real magic in bringing peace, healing and understanding to others. Here is the heavy resonsibility, and the dangers, in raven medicine. As with all things, these powers can be used for dark purposes. It enables the carrier to manipulate and coerce others into doing their will to the detriment of the other. This medicine can be used for selfish and self-serving purposes for the ego and greed of the carrier. Because of the power of the levels in understanding others, a practitioner of the black arts can use raven for destructive purposes. If you carry raven medicine, you must always use it in the light for the highest and best interests of others. You must use it for the good and well being of others, and never for your own selfish motives even though you may be tempted when times are bad. Raven medicine demands that you walk in the light in all things. That's heavy with responsibility for your own thoughts and deeds.

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