Animals have been used in traditions and literature for generations. As long as there have been humans, there have been stories, and there have been stories about the world around us. It is part of what makes us – us.
As the namesake of our journal, it’s only right that I focus on crows and ravens. The black-feathered, big-brained birds exist on nearly every continent, and stories follow them everywhere they go. Their intelligence is highly documented, with studies being done on face recognition and tool usage. While crows and ravens are different species of birds, they do tend to be referred to interchangeably in culture due to their similar characteristics.
The main difference between crows and ravens is their size. Ravens are bigger than crows, clocking in an average of 45 inches in wingspan. Their calls are also different – perhaps due to their larger size, ravens have a deeper, croakier call than crows’ traditional “caw caw.”
There are smaller differences as well, such as ravens’ generally fluffier heads and curved beaks, but for the most part, in mythology and literature, those differences are disregarded.
Crows in Culture
In many cultures, their presence is an omen of death.
Hugin and Munin, two ravens in Norse mythology that collected information for Odin, were in fact considered a part of the god himself. If you saw ravens flying away or over a battlefield, it meant that Odin was with you. While we won’t get into the Norse definition of the self (that’s a topic for another day), the two birds were considered to be a part of his intelligence.
According to Norse-Mythology.org, “Hugin (Old Norse Huginn) comes from the word hugr, ‘thought.’ Munin (Old Norse Muninn) comes from the word munr, which is more difficult to translate, but can encompass the concepts of ‘thought,’ ‘desire,’ and ‘emotion.”
Like Odin, the god Apollo in Greek mythology kept a white crow familiar. The bird’s feathers were stained black from the god’s jealous fit of rage after hearing of his lover’s infidelity. In the Book of Genesis, Noah releases a raven to find land. According to legend, the remains of St. Vincent of Saragossa, a Christian martyr, were protected by crows and ravens.
In most of the stories surrounding crows and ravens, they surround battle and the dead. It seems only fitting in a lot of cases (when I visited Australia and heard their crows call for the first time, I was sure there were instead sheep dying).
Indigenous Americans had a very different way of thinking about crows and ravens, however. The meaning behind crows was very positive, where they were believed to be “cleansers of both land and mind,” and good fortune. Many tribes have the tradition of consulting crows for wisdom.
Here and Now
In the modern world, crows are highly adapted to their environments, which often coincide with humans. They are perhaps one of the creatures most adapted to us, as they have and continue to flourish in towns, cities, and of course, their original forest homes. In fact, they do so well around us that they are partially considered pests.
Their success in our environment is entirely due to their intelligence, memory, and learning capabilities. There are stories of corvids dropping nuts on roads for cars to crush open, crows becoming friends with little girls and bringing them shiny presents, and pulling up fishing lines and stealing the fish attached.
It is easy to see why they are so attached to our imaginations: left to their own devices, learning and intelligently surviving, they perhaps remind us of us. Generations of birds remember people and threats, and show intelligence that surpasses many parrots. They delight our imaginations, whispering of others with our intelligence hiding just beyond the realm of sight. We see our own trickster natures in them, our intelligence, and sometimes our words. We see the person behind a window as in “The Raven,” by Edgar Allen Poe:
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
And we are enamored with that fact.
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Meagan Jones is a writer and artist from Southern Maine. She graduated in 2019 from the University of Maine at Farmington with a Creative Writing BFA and a Spanish minor. Check out her personal website at https://meaganljones.wordpress.com/ Follow her on Twitter @supernarra