Ravens and crows have been a huge part of human culture since ancient times. Large black birds evoked a powerful response in the collective subconscious of various human collectives. They were revered and feared since ancient time, considered messengers of gods or spirits of the dead. Modern day media also honors these birds. The image bred by these concepts is largely unrepresentative of them.
The image of ravens and crows has been different across different cultures. Scandinavian pagans honored ravens as messengers of Odin and symbols of wisdom. Ancient Greeks though ravens to be familiars of Apollo. During middle ages, the image of ravens became grimmer. Carrion birds, which fed on victims of plagues and multiple wars, represented death and everything connected to it. Another powerful image of raven originates in Victorian England. The story of the Tower Ravens is a beautiful tale speaking of the ravens as the guardians of England. The legend was thought to originate from the times of Charles II, but was proven to be created in the 19th century (Sax 2010). The most influential raven-related poem was also created by Edgar Allan Poe in the 19th century. The poem defined the image of ravens in modern culture. The bird since has been used as a symbol of death, mysticism and impending doom. Many modern movies solidified that image. In Omen 2 the antichrist has a raven as his spirit animal. The Crow is probably the movie which most promoted the dark image of crows in the 20th century. The death of Brandon Lee during the filming only added to the over the top grimness of the picture and further associated the crows with death and disaster.
All of those legends and works of art have built a very peculiar image of crows in the eyes of the public. They became associated with powers that be, messengers of gods or devils, mystical and mysterious creatures. Their image is largely negative in the modern day as most people think of them as carrion eaters. The image is regularly solidified as every medieval-themed movie aiming to create a darker atmosphere uses imagery of ravens feeding on corpses. That is a misconception. The word “crow” covers forty-eight different species of birds. Some of them are indeed carrion eaters, but many others, like jackdaws, are omnivores. That diversity explains the variety of images of crows across different cultures. The basis for the mystical allure of crows is surprisingly simple. Those birds are highly social and have developed a sort of culture of their own (Marzluff and Angell 2005). They are capable of learning from each other maintaining knowledge within their population. That culture is closely related to humans in ways scientist do not yet fully understand. Humans have affected crows as much as crows have affected ravens. Us growing crops, for example, changed the lives of many crow societies by giving them new ways to feed. Those types of connections give some ground to the perception of crows as mysterious and mystical, as they behave in ways no other bird does. Another image of crows in the humanity’s subconscious is that of a wise bird. That is based on from crows being inventive. The crows are, in fact, intelligent enough to use tools (Weir et al. 2002). That, combined with their ability to preserve knowledge within their societies, makes that perception justifiable. One example of such perception is the Association of Old Crows – an organization of electronic warfare specialists. The radar and communication specialist were codenamed “Ravens” during the Second World War. They were nicknamed “Crows”, hence the name of the Association.
The image of ravens and crows in human culture is diverse. They were revered and feared for the most of human history. The modern day image of crows became much more one-sided as people living in cities see more crows in movies than in real life. And moviemakers are all too glad to abuse the image of a dreadful carrion eater, which is unrepresentative of all the variety of crow species.
Citations
Marzluff JM, Angell T. 2005. Cultural coevolution: how the human bond with crows and ravens extends theory and raises new questions. J of Ecol Anthropol. 9(1): 69-75.
Sax B. 2010. The Tower Ravens: invented tradition, fakelore, or modern myth. Storytell. Self. Soc. 6(3): 231-240.
Weir A, Chappell J, Kacelnik A. 2002. Shaping of hooks in new caledonian crows. Science J. 297(5583):981-981.