Street gleams under the spring sun while older buildings are being closed down in anticipation of demolition. The London Stone still sits in its tatty 1960s site, accompanied by a huge sign advertising cheap office space.
The Ravens in the Tower
One of London’s most famous pieces of folklore is of the ravens of the Tower of London. Everyone knows, or knows of, the saying ‘If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it.’ This is why the wings of the ravens are clipped so they do not fly away. Why would the ravens even be in a book full of upstart urban legends? Could the London Stone legend be a corruption of this famous piece of tradition?
One story of how the ravens gained their power over our nation comes via the first astronomer royal, John Flamstead. As is the way with these things, there are two versions of the story. The first has Flamstead and King Charles II gazing through telescopes in Greenwich when their view is obscured by ravens. They were frustrating Flamstead by either flying in front of the telescopes or defecating on the lens. Charles II said that the ravens must go, but Flamstead told the monarch that it is unlucky to kill a raven and that ‘if the ravens left the Tower, the White Tower [the oldest part of the Tower of London] would collapse and a great disaster would befall the Kingdom’. In other versions of the tale it is an obscure soothsayer who warns the king after Flamstead complains about the ravens.
However, when Dr Parnell, official Tower of London historian, went through records of the Tower of London’s menagerie he found records of hawks, lions, leopards, monkeys and a polar bear, but no mention of a raven. Dr Parnell along with American writer Boria Sax, who was also interested in the Tower’s raven-lore, went through as much literature as possible and found the earliest mention of ravens at the Tower in a supplement called The Pictorial World on the Tower of London from 1883.
Where the legend itself comes from is another story, the earliest written version found only dates as far back as 1955, although the legend was recorded earlier. Natsume Soseki was a Japanese writer sent to study in London in 1900. He visited the Tower and wrote an account that Boria Sax describes as ‘phantasmagoric’. Soseki entered the Tower like it was a gothic nightmare, and ‘met’ the ghosts of Guy Fawkes, Walter Raleigh and Lady Jane Grey. The ghost of Lady Jane tells a child, who can only see three ravens, that there are always five. Soseki writes the following on his encounter with a raven up-close and his thoughts on the Tower’s executions: ‘Hunching its wings, its black beak protruding, it stares at people. I feel as if the rancour of a hundred years of blood have congealed and taken the form of a bird so as to guard this unhappy place for ever.’
Returning to his lodgings, Soseki is told by his landlord: ‘They’re sacred ravens. They’ve been keeping them there since ancient times, and, even if they become one short, they immediately make up the numbers again. There are always five ravens there.’
Soseki’s account was not translated into English until much later, but it is possible he picked up a folk-belief gathering around the idea of the ravens. Sax compares the impressionistic way Soseki writes to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses , representing the world of London as Joyce represents Dublin, but threading it with fiction. No one at present can ascertain where one ends and the other takes over.
Could the raven myth have been created earlier? It may not be much of a surprise that Dr Parnell did not find ravens in the Tower’s menagerie because ravens have long been indigenous to London. To record them at the Tower would be the same as listing the pigeons at London Zoo. Another suggestion for the ravens’ presence was that they were a joke gift to the Tower by the 3rd Earl of Dunraven. Dunraven was interested in Celtic raven myths
The Ravens in the Tower
One of London’s most famous pieces of folklore is of the ravens of the Tower of London. Everyone knows, or knows of, the saying ‘If the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it.’ This is why the wings of the ravens are clipped so they do not fly away. Why would the ravens even be in a book full of upstart urban legends? Could the London Stone legend be a corruption of this famous piece of tradition?
One story of how the ravens gained their power over our nation comes via the first astronomer royal, John Flamstead. As is the way with these things, there are two versions of the story. The first has Flamstead and King Charles II gazing through telescopes in Greenwich when their view is obscured by ravens. They were frustrating Flamstead by either flying in front of the telescopes or defecating on the lens. Charles II said that the ravens must go, but Flamstead told the monarch that it is unlucky to kill a raven and that ‘if the ravens left the Tower, the White Tower [the oldest part of the Tower of London] would collapse and a great disaster would befall the Kingdom’. In other versions of the tale it is an obscure soothsayer who warns the king after Flamstead complains about the ravens.
However, when Dr Parnell, official Tower of London historian, went through records of the Tower of London’s menagerie he found records of hawks, lions, leopards, monkeys and a polar bear, but no mention of a raven. Dr Parnell along with American writer Boria Sax, who was also interested in the Tower’s raven-lore, went through as much literature as possible and found the earliest mention of ravens at the Tower in a supplement called The Pictorial World on the Tower of London from 1883.
Where the legend itself comes from is another story, the earliest written version found only dates as far back as 1955, although the legend was recorded earlier. Natsume Soseki was a Japanese writer sent to study in London in 1900. He visited the Tower and wrote an account that Boria Sax describes as ‘phantasmagoric’. Soseki entered the Tower like it was a gothic nightmare, and ‘met’ the ghosts of Guy Fawkes, Walter Raleigh and Lady Jane Grey. The ghost of Lady Jane tells a child, who can only see three ravens, that there are always five. Soseki writes the following on his encounter with a raven up-close and his thoughts on the Tower’s executions: ‘Hunching its wings, its black beak protruding, it stares at people. I feel as if the rancour of a hundred years of blood have congealed and taken the form of a bird so as to guard this unhappy place for ever.’
Returning to his lodgings, Soseki is told by his landlord: ‘They’re sacred ravens. They’ve been keeping them there since ancient times, and, even if they become one short, they immediately make up the numbers again. There are always five ravens there.’
Soseki’s account was not translated into English until much later, but it is possible he picked up a folk-belief gathering around the idea of the ravens. Sax compares the impressionistic way Soseki writes to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses , representing the world of London as Joyce represents Dublin, but threading it with fiction. No one at present can ascertain where one ends and the other takes over.
Could the raven myth have been created earlier? It may not be much of a surprise that Dr Parnell did not find ravens in the Tower’s menagerie because ravens have long been indigenous to London. To record them at the Tower would be the same as listing the pigeons at London Zoo. Another suggestion for the ravens’ presence was that they were a joke gift to the Tower by the 3rd Earl of Dunraven. Dunraven was interested in Celtic raven myths
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