The Ravens of the Tower of London

 Last week, as it was half-term, we decided to go to the Tower of London to meet a childhood friend of my wife, her eldest son being the very first friend of Wolfie. It was my second visit there, and we all had a very pleasant time, in spite of the cold (or maybe even because of it). I'm not sure which one was my favourite part, but I do have to say I really enjoyed seeing the ravens of the Tower. Because I love ravens and because of the legend associated to them: they must remain in the Tower as if they fly away, the British Crown will fall and Britain will too. I don't think it's true, but it's just cool to have ravens as residents.

Corbeaux en chocolat

Mes parents sont allés à Québec et sont donc passé faire un tour à Eddy Laurent. Je ne sais pas s'ils ont acheté quoi que ce soit, mais ils ont pris quelques photos. Eddy Laurent semble se préparer à l'Halloween avec un enthousiasme que j'adore. Ils ont notamment fait des corbeaux en chocolat, ceux-ci. L'Halloween, ça se passe aussi avec les corbeaux.

A Raven

 We went to an animal hospital/sanctuary today. It's a small place, but we enjoyed it a lot. Wolfie and his mum had been there before, a long time ago, but not me, so all the more reason to go there. A parent's life is often going to zoos and such sanctuaries. Anyway, I love wildlife, so I was happy to go there, even though there were not many pensioneers. Which must be a good thing. They had two ravens. I could not see them in their cage at first, they blended in their surroundings. I am always impressed when I see ravens, they are sinister yet beautiful birds. And they are huge! These two were anyway. I took a few snapshots, including this one, where I think the raven looks really scary.

A spies' coat of arms

This post is I hope the first of many about police, army and intelligence services around the world. And if you ask me why I am doing this, the answer is simple: just for fun. Anyway, you may know of many intelligence agencies around the world, but maybe not of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, or NIS. I know nothing about them either, except for the very first episode of The Sandbaggers, where they are depicted in a badlight,annoyingly sloppy spies that are borderline amateurs. That said, I wished you could see them in more spy thrillers for one trivial reason: they have a badass coat of arms. You can see on it Odin's ravens Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) and any intelligence service that takes inspiration from Norse mythology is okay in my book. No matter what this coat of arms has to show up in fiction some day.

Of Ravens and Halloween

I took this picture early in October at Hogshaw Farm, a petting zoo we quite liked and that had lots of Halloween stuff already. It is a true raven. It struck me that because of their cultural depiction, often with sinister associations, ravens are perfect birds for the Halloween season. But they are seldom used, sadly. Of course, there is Edgar Allan Poe's poem/horror story(ish) The Raven, but since a certain program made a parody of it, I cannot take it seriously anymore. As much as it made me laugh, it is a shame. I think ravens should return in horror stories and in Halloween imagery.

Did I see a raven?

I was walking to go and get Wolfie from school and passing by one of the town's allotments. And I saw a huge corvid. It was really big. I suspect it was a raven, but I cannot be sure as I am not really an ornithologist, not even an amateur one. Either that or a really big, oversized crow. But I think it was a raven. I tried to take a picture, but unfortunately it flew away before I could. I will keep my eyes open for next time.

Yule

 Today is/was the shortest day of the year, which is the beginning of Yule. Which was the old namefor Christmas. Christmas owes a lot to Yuletide, in its imagery particularly. Santa Claus is in many ways a softer Odin Allfather. Anyway, I try celebrate Christmas as I would Yuletide centuries ago. So happy Yule everyone.

I'm a Cryptkeeper

Tomorrow is the official start of the countdown to Halloween. That said, I start counting down since the first of November, or almost and I prepare myself mentally to Halloween and to this time of year from August onwards. And every year, for the month leding to my favourite holiday, I become a Cryptkeeper and blog almost exclusively about Halloween. I also get my cool badge from the Countdown to Halloween blog, THE big online gathering place for Halloween lovers. And what a cool badge it is this year: it is a changing one! It has an image of witch, of zombie rising from the grave and of a raven. My favourite is the raven. Anyway, I cannot wait for tomorrow and please keep reading this blog.

Corbeau

Mon père m'a envoyé cette photo prise par les caméras dans le lot de mes oncles. Un vrai de vrai corbeau. Enfin, c'est ce que dit mon père. Pour les différences entre les deux, lire ce lien. On voit beaucoup de corneilles au Québec comme ailleurs, mais les corbeaux on les voit moins. Je sais qu'il a mauvaise réputation, mais je l'aime beaucoup. Et oui, il semblerait qu'il y ait encore de la neige dans les bois au Québec.

Cù Chulainn

I took this picture on my trip to Dublin back in 2000. With a disposable camera. The image is horrid, but it is the statue of (the back of) the legendary hero Cù Chulainn that you can see at the General Post Office. With the raven on his shoulder because the hero was dead. I wish I had a better picture. Anyway, it is Saint Patrick's Day tomorrow and I thought I would share this piece of Celtic culture. I know too little about Cù Chulainn but I want to discover more. In many ways, he was the Irish Hercules or Sigurd. (Oh and on a side note: yes, the accent on the u is at the wrong place, I will try to correct it if I find out how.)

"Ravenscourt"

I was having a walk yesterday and saw this street sign. And I thought: "Wow! This is an uber cool name!" Well, not as cool as the name of Crowthorne, but it is still a really neat address to have. I remembered that one of my friends used to live there. She moved out, but not before offering us to rent it. For various reasons, we didn't. The place was simply too small. Still, what a great name.

Eerie tea mug

This is tonight's countdown to Halloween post. It is again about a product from David's Tea. This is one of their perfect tea mugs, the navy birch trees perfect tea mug. It is of course from their autumn collection. They always make great designs for their autumn collection and this year is no exception. I know this is not strictly speaking one of their Halloween mugs, but I decided to make it a Halloween related topic because of its look: gloomy, sinister, very atmospheric. And I don't know if you can see it on this picture,  but there is a corvid on one of the branches, a crow or a raven, which gives it an more sinister twist. As I had already bought a David's Tea's mug (more about it on this blog post) and this place is crammed enough as it is when it comes to mugs (including a Halloween tea mug also from David's Tea), I did not buy this one. That said, for those readers who live in Canada or the US, please go and have a look into your nearest David's Tea shop. This tea mug is perfect to drink tea on a cold autumn day, when Halloween is coming.

The Raven by Poe (The Simpsons take on it)

First and foremost, to begin this countdown to Halloween post, I wanted to say thank you to Wendy from The Halloween Tree blog for giving me such beautiful gifts. I feel so grateful and so unworthy of such generosity. As people know if they read her post about the giveaway, one of the presents The Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe Unabridged. To thank her, I have decided to upload here the upload here The Raven as narrated on The Simpsons, on their very first Treehouse of Horror Halloween special. I could not find the video, only the audio of the narrative, but it is still incredibly funny, yet it keeps the original text as beautiful as scary. In other words, two classics in one. And again, thank you so much Wendy.

Rooks

This picture was taken at the Natural History Museum. It shows rooks, a member of the corvids family. Well, stuffed rooks really. I particularly like stuffed animals, I think they have some kind of old-fashioned charm. I thought about this picture this week as I saw a few crows here and there and maybe even some ravens. I used to dislike corvids as a child, but not anymore. Anyway, I do not know much about rooks, but I know that like all corvids they are smart. Anyway, I wanted to upload this picture for a while, so tonight I thought I would do it, for no particular reason.

Un corvidé (mais lequel?)

Vous vous rappelez de la photo du mois de janvier, le thème que j'avais choisi, "un", qui m'avait donné des mots de tête? J'avais finalement opté pour cette photo d'un corbeau/d'une corneille. Voici une deuxième photo du corvidé, vu de plus près. Elle n'est pas aussi évocatrice, mais on peut voir l'oiseau de plus près. Je l'ai téléchargée parce que je me demande toujours s'il est corbeau ou corneille. Il y a quelqu'un qui le sait? Morale de ce billet: ce que je suis mauvais ornithologue.

Un (la photo du mois)

Cette photo du mois était très particulière pour moi, parce que j'ai choisi le thème: Un. Un comme, bien un. J'aurais pu d'abord choisir la photo et ensuite trouver un thème qui va avec. Au lieu de ça, je me suis compliqué la vie: j'ai voulu trouver un thème inspirant et il m'a donné bien des maux de têtes. J'ai donc pris plusieurs clichés, en tentant d'en trouver un (ha, ha, ha!) qui puisse fonctionner avec le thème. J'ai pensé à une autre photo d'Odin, qui n'avait qu'un oeil, mais deux fois de suite, ça aurait été paresseux. Et puis finalement, j'ai choisi cette photo d'une corneille, ou d'un corbeau, enfin un corvidé. Outre que c'est un oiseau seul sur cette photo, sans congénère, un brin solitaire, donc, il y a certaines raisons plus obscures pour avoir choisi cette photo en particulier plutôt qu'une autre. Comme nous sommes en janvier, le début de l'année, je présente un oiseau doté de don de prophétie, selon bien des folklores. On peut donc associer l'oiseau au mois de janvier, le mois de l'année qui s'en vient (okay, bon, c'est tiré par les cheveux, je l'avoue). Le noir de son plumage dénote ou bien l'absence totale de couleurs, ou bien l'absorbtion de toutes les couleurs. Dans les deux cas, c'est une couleur unique, enfin distincte de toutes les autres. Le noir est la couleur de la distinction: on parle de roman noir, de série noire, d'humour noir, de mouton noir, de bête noire, de broyer du noir, etc. C'est notamment à cause de la distinction du noir, d'ailleurs, que je préfère les chats noirs aux autres (Odin aurait vraiment été parfait si je ne l'avais pas pris pour sujet en décembre). Et là le corbeau, ou la corneille, enfin le corvidé, est une tache noire sur un fond vert, brun, bleu... Seul, solitaire, unique.

Bon, si jamais je choisis un prochain thème, ce sera l'arroseur arrosé. D'ici là, vous pouvez voir ce qu'ont trouvé les autres:

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The Day of Odin

I know I have blogged about the very same topic before. Maybe this post is just a cheap excuse to upload another picture of Giovanni Caselli from Gods and Heroes from Viking Mythology. But I love this picture, heck all the ones of this book and today is, well, Wednesday, the Day of Odin. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a drawing by Caselli that looks like a bookmark, reprensenting symbols related to the story or the subject featured in the chapter. This one is for the chapter called Odin prepares for the Ragnarok. You see the throne of Odin, his spear, his two ravens Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory), the eagle "from his helmet", his two wolves Geri Greediguts and Freki Gobble-up and his eight legged horse Sleipnir and I think what seems to be at the bottom an hourglass, obviously to symbolise the passing of time and the upcoming doom that it the Viking end of days. Pretty much how I often feel every Wednesday, with a certain ominous unease, as if some catastrophe was about to happen. Apart from this flimsy association, the image is just... cool. With two of my favourite animals, the ravens and the wolves. I hope you enjoy. In the meantime, try to remember all these names and you'll impress people with your knowledge of Viking lore.

Witching hour

I gave this title to my post, yet it is not technically about the witching hour I am blogging about. I just liked to use the title. I was not sure what to blog about for my Halloween countdown tonight. I was considering uploading a horror movie from YouTube, but YouTube has been quite temperamental tonight. So instead I decided to upload another picture taken from this book. A simple but very chilling image, showing three witches taking something from a hangman. I will not say what., but if you read about the folklore surrounding them you will find out.

Of all the supernatural creatures, I blog very little about witches. I wanted to write one post about it, about a specific horror story about witches (you'll see which one soon). This evening, I was waiting for the train, it was cold, the sun was setting, there was a strange smell of smoke and fire. It was so atmospheric. And it made me think about this picture, of the crooked tree and the ravens/crows, the hangman, the three witches doing some evil business. I hope it gives you a pleasant chill.

Corvids and magpies

This picture was taken in the Lake District, in the Keswick Museum, every exsue is good to publish pictures from that time, even dead birds on display. It was a small museum but I was fascinated by what was in it.You can see here (I think but I am not sure) from left to right a raven, a crow and a magpie (or a hooded crow?).

Anyway, when I went out yesterday I saw lots and lots of crows. With the springtime colours, their black feathers make them difficult to miss. Oh and their distinctive caws! I am fascinated by these birds, which I used to dislike as a young child, especially when I was having breakfast, as I found their appearances and their cry utterly sinister. But then of course whatever is sinister also fascinates me, even at a young age, and I learned more and more about them and ended up loving them. I still find them sinister, but playfully so, knowing very weel that this is irrational superstition. Great working material for fiction or games.

Magpies are a different lot. I never even saw one until I campe in England. They have a very distinctive colour too, and I remember taking many pictures of them when I first came here. Before I associated them more with this Tintin album, maybe the best one ever. I never heard La Gazza Ladra, except its overture. Anyway, as this is the wildlife I see outside, I thought I would put some here on my blog.

Corvids are superior creatures

I watched a documentary recently (I think it was on Channel 5, Extraordinary Animals I believe) about ravens and crows, showing how intelligent they were. They have excellent memory and some ravens even use tools to pick up their food, something only apes and humans do in the animal kingdom. I just find these kind of documentaries and what they teaches us fascinating.

Ravens and crows often have a bad reputation in the West. In Middle Ages, they were associated with disease and plague. I read once in a Dictionnaire des symboles that negative associations was probably due to the fact that corvids were stealing harvest to primitive cultures. That and their colour, which But on a more positive association, Odin had two ravens at his service. As a child, I didn't like to hear crows in the morning. I now admire them greatly, but I still like the sinister myths surrounding them. In our Dungeons & Dragons game, my brother had the brilliant idea to have the god of evil in our world be associated to ravens and his servants and worshippers using the raven as an emblem. Sauron was a burning red eye, Voldemort was a snake, our darklord is a raven opening his wings. Geniusly sinister.

But in the real world, they are just among the smartest birds one can ever find.