Monstrous
The Animal Within => Monstrous Animals => Topic started by: DarkX on September 25, 2003, 10:27:24 AM
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Write a myth section on The Crow
I hear it dates back to befor Christ..
If not it's a myth now so add it please...
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If you see a crow flapping its wings, beware: A big accident is about to happen.
Nor do you want to see a crow facing your door, because that signals danger. And if a crow is sitting on top of a house with a red thread in its beak, call the fire department posthaste, because the flames aren't far behind.
These superstitions come from Asia, and they're just a few of the scores of myths that surround the unfortunate crow and its slightly larger cousin, the raven.
Not all the predictions involving Corvus brachyrhynchos and its relatives are scary.
A romantic soul couldn't hope for anything better than seeing a crow, because it means the heart's wishes will be fulfilled. The only tricky part is that the bird has to be flying from the southwest at sunset. The same bird coming from the same direction at noon means your enemy is coming, not your lover. Other directions and different hours change the message, but the ebony messenger remains the same.
Crows have long been associated with death in many cultures, because they often could be found feeding on animal and human remains at battlefields or cemeteries.
And while such birds as swallows and storks are welcomed as signs of spring or childbirth, a gathering of crows is sometimes called a "murder," stemming from yet another myth that says crows will sit in judgment of their own and then kill them.
Those who think the crow is getting a bum rap can blame it partly on Apollo, a Greek god known for venting his anger on any number of mortals. According to Greek mythology, the raven was originally a beautiful, silver-white bird, until it had the misfortune to tell Apollo that his human lover, Coronis, had rejected him for a mere man. Apollo turned the bird's feathers black.
Not everyone engages in crow bashing.
Many American Indian tribes saw the crow as a wise adviser and the spirit of wisdom and the law.
The Norse god Odin used two crows -- Hugin and Munin, representing thought and memory -- as his daily observers of the world.
And members of the American Society of Crows and Ravens, founded in 1982, like to quote American writer and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, who said:
"If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows."
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Indian Creation Myths
The Day
The Crow, who now reigns from the top of the totem of the Haida nation, was the grandson of the Great Holy Chief who made the world.
When the crow cried, asking for the moon that hung from the wall of logs, his grandfather gave it to him. The crow threw it at the sky through the chimney hole; and again he cried, claiming the stars. When he got them, he distributed them around the moon.
Then he cried and kicked and screamed until his grandfather gave him the wrought wooden box in which he kept the light of day. The Great Holy Chief forbade him to take the box out of the house. He had decided that the world would live in darkness.
The crow played with the box, pretending to be inattentive, but observing from the corner of his eye the guardians who were watching him.
Taking advantage of a moment of carelessness, he escaped with the box in his beak. The tip of his beak broke as he passed through the chimney and his feathers were burnt, and stayed black forever.
The crow arrived at the islands off the coast of Canada. He heard human voices and asked for food. They refused him. He threatened to break open the wooden box:
“If the day escapes, which I hold here, the sky will never be turned off,” he warned. No one will be able to sleep, or keep secrets, and it will be known who are people, who is a bird and who is a beast of the forest.”
They laughed. The crow broke the box and the light erupted in the universe.
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Crows also fortold the impending death of Julian, the last pagan emperor of Rome in 363. Pliny also wrote that they lived nine times longer than humans.