Quoth the Raven

It’s only been in recent years that I’ve come to know ravens, and for no good reason, their size and croaking call gives me the heebie-jeebies. When I solo-walked the West Island Way in 2020, I very nearly lost my bottle when ravens flew over calling just as I was about to plunge into the dark opening of a thick isolated conifer forest. So, when I encountered a couple of ravens on route 78 in Argyll last week, I thought it was about time I learnt something more positive about them for my Award. But, reading up on them, much of the folklore connected with them is of death and darkness and the underworld. The collective noun is an ‘unkindness’. The Edgar Allan Poe poem ‘The Raven’ which always pops into my head when I see them, is all about grief and madness and hopelessness. My favourite bird book describes them as ‘angular and domineering’. This isn’t helping. Luckily the internet is awash with other examples of ravens showing their intelligence and creativity, solving puzzles, speaking, singing, being playful. It reminds me that I’ve seen them tuck their wings and spin upside down while flying too, and is also a nudge to read a book that I have been meaning to for years – Corvus: A Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson. Edgar Allan Poe noted “this ebony bird [is] beguiling my sad fancy into smiling” – it’s probably time for me to let it do the same. Image: John Tenniel, 1858 (https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/)