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Class #4 - Corvid Mythology, Legends & Lore with Mary Kiesau
February 16, 2016
February 16, 2016
Watch and listen to the second half of the class on this video (we had a problem
recording the first part of the lecture; this video starts late.)
Corvids are popular figures in mythical stories throughout the
world. The most popular corvids in mythology are ravens and crows but magpies and
jays are also featured (Mary said she couldn’t find any nutcracker stories). Mary covered stories from Native American or
other First People cultures; tales from the Far East; and legends and myths of
Western Europe from both the old Norse/Viking era as well as from the more recent
“Christian” era of say the last several hundred years.
Magpies
Magpies are a very common symbol throughout many Asian countries.
They are seen very positively - generally representing happiness, good luck,
and good news. A famous love story about
Niu Lang and Zhi Nv is called the “Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.” After marrying and having 2 children, they
were separated by a great river and can meet each other only once a year by
crossing a “magpie bridge.” The Cowherd
and the Weaver Girl are represented in the night sky by the stars Altair (in
the Eagle, Aquila) and Vega (in the Harp, Lyra), respectively, and the Milky
Way is the river. The Qixi Festival is
the annual Chinese festival that celebrates the once-a-year meeting of the
cowherd and weaver girl. It is sometimes called the Chinese Valentine's Day or
the Magpie Festival. The tale of The
Weaver Girl and the Cowherd has been celebrated in the Qixi Festival since the
Han Dynasty. This story is also told and
celebrated in Korea and Japan.
In China magpies are also associated
with children and marriage. The magpie is
regarded as the bird of joy, and the Chinese call it “The Happy Magpie.” It is a symbol for marital bliss, sexual
happiness, nesting, and long lasting fortune.
In Korean art, magpies are frequently painted along with tigers. Magpies are said to deliver good news and the
tiger represents good luck.
The good nature of Asian depictions of
magpies is contrasted by Western cultures negative depiction of the birds. In European cultures magpies are often seen
as bad omens. The following saying shows that seeing one magpie is an ill omen
but it is not nearly as bad as seeing a flock of magpies.
“One for sorrow, two for joy, three for
a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a story never
to be told.”
If you see just one magpie there are certain
measures you can take to avoid imminent tragedy. First- salute the bird and say, “Good
morning, Mr. Magpie. I hope your wife and family are well!” If that doesn’t work caw like a magpie while
flapping your arms. This way there will actually be two magpies which is a good
omen!
There is one English fairy tale that
actually acknowledges their intelligence. It’s called The Magpie’s Nest –read it here.
Skadi, the Norse goddess of winter is
often associated with magpies. The
Danish word for magpie is skade. In
Greece, the magpie was sacred to Bacchus, the God of wine. So the magpie is
sometimes associated with intoxication.
Western Indigenous cultures, like the
Asian cultures, see the magpie as a friend and helper, though they also often
see him as a trickster, like they do with the corvids in general. Many Native
American tribes have stories involving magpie, and wearing a magpie feather is
a sign of fearlessness in some tribes as the magpie is bold and has little
fear. Here’s a Cheyenne story about Magpie and why he is a friend to humans.
Jays
There is not a lot of folklore or
mythology about jays across the world. The ones Mary found were from Native
American tribes, about both gray jays and various “blue” jays.
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| Stellar's Jay by Fred Croydon |
Wesakechak (wee-sah-keh-chahk) is the
benevolent culture hero of the Cree tribe. There are hundreds of stories about
him, but no one really knows what he looks like because Wisakecahk
has many powers, such as the ability to
change shape and be anything he wants, and to speak the languages of the
animals and plants. Stories about
Wisakecahk usually begin with him walking and feeling hungry. He is too lazy to
get food for himself, so he will try to trick other animals into giving him
their food, or into becoming his food. Wisakecahk
became anglicized as “whiskey jack,” which became an alternate name for the
gray jay.
Crows
Crows are one of the most popular
corvids featured in mythology. Crows and
ravens (and most likely rooks, jackdaws, hooded crows and carrion crows) are
often, though not always, interchangeable in folklore and mythology. They are
often portrayed with dichotomous roles and meanings (good and evil, bird of
darkness and death or creator of the world and light, etc.)
 |
| Mural from the Han Dynasty period found in Henan province |
The crow also appears in Japanese
mythology and to some extant modern culture. In Japanese mythology, a jungle
crow called Yatagarasu is evidence of the will of Heaven or divine intervention
in human affairs. Yatagarasu the
Crow-God is symbolic specifically of guidance. This great crow was sent from
heaven as a guide for Emperor Jimmu (was the first Emperor of Japan, according
to legend) on his initial journey from the region.
The crow is considered by orthodox
religious Hindus to be a messenger from the world of the ancestors and is
ceremonially offered cooked rice in the annual event Shraddha. Crow calls are viewed as an omen of
unexpected guests.
In many cultures crows (or ravens) started out white and there are many stories about why they turned black. Here are several of those stories.
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| Corvids, like any animal, can be Albino or leucistic |
There’s a story about Muhammad, the
founder of Islam and the last profit sent to earth by God sometime around 570.
A popular legend depicts a time Muhammed was hiding from his enemies in a cave.
A crow, then white, spotted him and cried “Ghar, Ghar!” (cave, cave!) to his seekers.
They did not comprehend the crow’s cries, however, and Muhammad escaped, but he
turned the crow black for the betrayal and cursed him to only utter one phrase
for the rest of time; “Ghar, Ghar!”
Crows or ravens frequently appear in
“Great Flood” stories. Some legends depict the bird as a Noah-like creator,
saving all the other animals. However,
one biblical “Noah” story says that after it had stopped raining, Noah sent a
white raven to explore the sea and look for a dry piece of land. Instead of
coming back the bird just flew around. So Noah sent a white dove which came
back with an olive branch signifying land. The raven was summoned to come and
was blackened by Noah and condemned to feed on carrion as a punishment.
In a North American tribal legend, the
raven and the peacock were close friends. One day, the two birds decided to
amuse themselves by painting each other's feathers. The raven set willingly to work and so
surpassed itself that the peacock became, as it is today, one of the most
beautiful birds on earth. Unwillingly to share its glory even with its friend,
the mean-spirited peacock painted the raven plain black. Other variations of this story suggest the
raven exhausted all the color on the peacock, leaving only black for itself.
The Sioux tell the story of how a white
raven used to warn buffalo of approaching hunting parties. The buffalo would
then stampede, and the hunters would be left hungry. Eventually, an angry
shaman threw the bird into the fire which turned it black. Mary’s last crow story came from Lenni Lenape
Tribe in Delaware. It’s called “Rainbow Crow.”
Ravens
Ravens are perhaps the most common bird
symbol in the mythologies, legends and folklore of ancient (and modern) cultures.
They assume a variety of roles, ranging from messengers of deities and sages to
tricksters and bringers of death. They play a central part in many aboriginal
creation myths and, like crows and other corvids, are typically associated with
the supernatural realms lying beyond the ordinary experience.
In many western traditions ravens
represent darkness, destructiveness, uncleanliness and evil. They are sometimes
associated with deities of impurity and death. Their black color is certainly a part of these
beliefs, but it’s also because the eat carrion, and were seen among the dead,
on battlefields and elsewhere, often with wolves, which symbolically is one of
man's oldest enemy.
But before ravens began to be vilified
throughout Europe (and then wherever Europeans went), they had a long history
of myth and legend with numerous ancient cultures, particularly in the Norse
and Celtic regions. The ravens of
European mythology are invariably messengers, or an alternate shape for various
deities and spirits (vs. in the indigenous cultures of North America, ravens are
often the deities themselves). The most
widely known heroes of European folklore that are associated with ravens are
Bran, Morrigan, King Arthur and Odin.
Mary discussed each of these.
In old Welsh and Celtic mythology, the
Welsh giant Bran (aka Bran the Blessed) was the King and
protector of all of
Britain, and he kept ravens. When Bran
was mortally wounded while warring against the Irish, he commanded his
followers to behead him and bury his head in what is now Tower Hill in London
to protect Britain from invasion. A popular superstition arose declaring that
if the ravens ever fled the Tower of London, the monarchy would fall. As long
as they nested there, Britain would never be successfully invaded. Bran's
Ravens have been there for over 900 years and are kept there to this day, as
protection against invasion. During
World War II, Tower Hill was bombed, and the ravens were lost. Winston
Churchill, knowing full well the ancient legends, ordered the immediate
replacement of ravens, and they were brought to Tower Hill from the Bran’s land
of the Welsh hills and Scottish Highlands.
The name "Brân" in Welsh means crow or raven.
Among the Irish Celts, ravens are
associated with the “Triple Goddess,” Morrigan, who would take shape as a raven
(or crow) and fly over battlefields choosing the slain and protecting warriors,
such as the famous warrior Cuchulian. She was sometimes called the Battle Crow.
Morrigan was also prone to prophecies and predicting the outcome of battles.
In “The Dream of Rhonabwy” (written in
the 14th century but set many centuries earlier during the time of King
Arthur), the knight Owain who has an army of ravens is playing King Arthur in a
game of cheese in Cornwall. King Arthur’s people begin to harass Owain ravens
and Owain asks the King to leave his ravens alone. King Arthur ignores Owain
who then sets his ravens on Arthur’s mean. The ravens kill many people and then
turn the great King Arthur into a raven. Well into modern times, many people
still believed that King Arthur was alive in the form of a raven, and in
Cornwall especially, people will not kill a raven.
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| "Odin, der Göttervater" by Wilhelm Wägner, 1882 |
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| “Raven and The First Men,” by Bill Reid |
Creation myths continue with various stories about how Raven created the earth and/or how he created the First People. Here’s another video story from Haida Gwaii called “Raven & the First People.”
In other stories, perhaps when Raven is
still young, he is the trickster, like Coyote, sometimes devious and sometimes benevolent. Mary closed the program with one of these “trickster”
tales from a Northwest coastal tradition called, “Raven and the Man that Sits on the Tides.”
