ODIN’S RAVEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 85

ODIN’S RAVEN.

Br Jkssis Mack at.

The raven has been a bird of evil and of death since the dawn of written literature, and was doubtless tbe theme of many a dark tribal song, the rude aftermath of primeval fight by nameless cairn and forgotten fort. Such, was the symbolism of the bird in the East, no less than in the West, as we may gather from the names of those Biblical Bedouins, Oreb and Zeeb (the Wolf and the Raven), who withstood Israel in the early days. Yet the raven was, in a lesser degree, a creature of two aspects after the manner of the serpent in primeval legend. The serpent in Semitic thought was now the type of evil and nbiv the type of wisdom, as the Scriptural injunction, “Be ye wise as serpents,” testifies, while in India the serpent is alternately the object of horror and of worship. Just as the Semitic Shumerians of Chaldea absorbed with a certain awe some of the mournful demon-worship .of the darker Turanian Accads, so the Aryan conquerors"'of India, with all their pride of race, could not but ass(ini!late something of the sombre Dravidian magic that pertained to Naga, King of Serpents, and other legendary aboriginal powers. * In modern English imagery, needless to say, the raven and the dove are as sharply contrasted as in the Hebrew flood story:— And thrice the raven flapped his wing Around the towers of Cumnor Hall, says the poet Mickle, in counting the portents preceding the murder of Amy Robsart by her faithless husband—the tragedy that forms the ground of Scott’s ‘‘Kenilworth.” But the raven had ils day in a bygone England, for all that—a day when kings and heroes were proud to Take it for an emblem. This was in the England of the Danish invasions, as well as the misty time of Hengist and Horsa, those stout sons of Odin, who are themselves going the mythical way of William Tell these days. For, by the pagan Norseman the raven was feared and honoured as the favourite bird of Odin. The fierceness, the lust for blood, that distinguished the raven was wholly in keeping with the attributes of the God of Battles and of Fate. But Odin had another and a nobler aspect in Northern thought, and high qualities they were, too, which distinguished his dark favourite in Valhalla, vying there with the owl of Pallas and the eagle of Jove. Its keenness of sight and smell, its strength and wonderful powers of flight, as well as its sagacity—all these attributes combined to make it the heavenly pet and counsellor- of the Northman’s All-Father. The early Teuton could not grasp omniscience, so he believed that two wise ravens were sent out bv Odin early each morning to fly over all the earth and behold the works of men. At night they returned, and seated themselves one on each shoulder of Odin, from which they whispered their report into his ear. These were called Hugin and Mugin (Mind and Memory)—names which bear out in a striking manner tha serpent analogy I have referred to. Not as an enemy, but as a powerful helper, did the older Englishman and his cousin, the turbulent Dane, regard the sombre bird. In battle its picture, even, was his protection. In Irish annals the raven banner of Sigurd, Earl of Orkney ,_ figures at the battle of Clontarf, in which the saintly Brian Boru broke for ev.er the heathen power of the Danes in Erin. The banner was wrought by Sigurd’s mother with all the spells of heathen witchcraft, and wherever it led Sigurd was ever victorious, but the standard-bearer never returned alive from battle.. At Clontarf. as the old story ran, the pagan fetish lost half its power on being confronted with the allied Christian host of Brian. None of Sigurd’s men, at last, would

] bear the fatal pennon at Clontarf, and ! Sigurd, desperately pressed by an Irish champion, himself snatched the luckbringer of other days from the ground, only to meet his death an instant later at the hands of his Christian antagonist. The raven was deemed also to have the gift of prophecy, its supernatural powers being thought singularly useful in long voyages before the invention of the compass. Many a tale is told of historic journeyings in which some Northern Columbus pushed on to victory, led by the flight of a raven. It is said that an early navigator, Floki, seeking the little known shore of Iceland, peopled at that time by a handful of hermit Culdees, took with him three ravens. He set one free, and it went back, so he knew the land he had left was nearer than that he sought. The next liberated came back to the ship, so he knew there was no land anywhere in sight. The third raven when let away flew on in a westerly direction, and the daring' voyager, following his winged guide, came at last to the , land of his quest. j The relations of early Celt and early ’ Teuton are ever to some extent problematic. The fact that in old Gaelic poetry : the raven usually figures as a friend and monitor of man may mean that a- similar homage was paid to the bird by the fathers of the Celtic Islesmen, or it may | mean the strong influence-exerted by the ; Teutons on their Celtic neighours. j This last is the view taken by a writer i in the Celtic Monthly, the Rev. James 1 MacDougall, who has succeeded in pre--1 serving an ancient fragment of clan-lore, i The famed MacDougalls of the Isles, we learn, regarded the raven as their token, so to speak. The writer thus explains this seemingly inauspicious choice : —Duigall, the great ancestor of the House of Lorn, afterwards the greatest Gaelic family in the Western Isles, was the son of Raguhilda, daughter of the Norwegian Kihjg of ! Man. Through her a Norse element was j brought into fhe family, which the alli- ■ ance further enriched with the islands of Mull, Coll, Tivee, and Jura. Other Teutonic influences were also about the MacDoumill.s of Lorn, who, till the time of Alexander 111. paid homage to the King of Man, Pot the King of Scotland. Not very surprising is it, then, that the (great Celtic Lords of the Isles came to ad out the cla.n.-svmbol of the wise and faithful bird of Odin ?