Ravenmaster Derrick Coyle and “Branwen”
No, they haven’t drawn any Mohammad cartoons, or insulted Islam, or even denied the Holocaust. The famous ravens have been moved indoors to protect them from the infamous bird flu. Why, you ask? Because legend has it that if those birds die, the Kingdom of England will fall, the tower will crumble, and a woman who enables her sex-compulsive, philandering, lying husband will become president of the United States. Wow, some of those English superstitions are really specific!
Tower Ravens Caged Over Bird Flu Threat
LONDON (AP) – The ravens at the Tower of London have been moved indoors to protect them from the threat of bird flu, the man in charge of the birds said Monday.
According to legend, if the ravens leave the 11th century fortress on the River Thames, its White Tower will crumble and the Kingdom of England will fall. King Charles II decreed in the 17th century that there must always be six ravens at the Tower.
If relying on an old superstition gets the birds special treatment, I’m all for it. But if England were really serious about saving the Kingdom, they’d repatriate all those Radical Islamists they have wandering around. But that’s just my humble opinion.
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This provides an excuse for me to wonder whether ravens are the same as crows. Wikipedia tells me they two are related, but the crows are smaller. It also mentions that, although we commonly refer to a collection of the birds as a flock, the specific terms are a murder of crows and an unkindness of ravens. I’ve never heard anyone actually use those terms, and I can’t imagine how they came to be declared, but that’s what they say.
Here in Pasadena where I live, there’s a flock of wild parrots that show up here and there now and then. Legend has it that long ago, there was a mass escape as a result of pet store fire (like in the movie “Peewee’s Big Adventure”?), and the free birds have prospered nicely.
Save the Kingdom? … , quote the raven “Nevermoreâ€
Talkin Horse, the Ravens of the Tower are definitely MUCH larger than common crows. I must say, I also find it extremely amusing that five of them have names from Norse myth, but the sixth is named after Baldrick from Blackadder.
Charles II would know: after all, during his lifetime, the kingdom DID fall, at least in the sense that his father lost his throne and then his head to Cromwell’s puritan military dictatorship.
Horse:
My ex-wife’s brother used to live in Pasadena. There is a bakery there where he used to get the most amazing cakes….
Do you by any chance work at JPL? If that isn’t prying to much.
Hi, Junkie, I don’t work at JPL, but I’m an escapee from CIT, so you’re close. No doubt the bakery you mention offers four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, and that’s why you thought of it in this thread? Or perhaps you had a less mentionable specialty in mind? I don’t have much occasion to buy cakes, but I lament the passing of HoneyBaby’s Teacakes, which was a black-owned business selling unique bakery treats based on a family recipe dating back to the old South. Most bakery goodies are too heavy for me to dare keep them around, lest they become habitual, but the teacakes were light.
Sounds like the birds need flu shots!
Talkin Horse:
We have the wild parrots in San Diego, too. And they love our fig tree when the figs get ripe. Of course, having 20-30 parrots in your back yard squawking at 5:30 AM gets old after about the second day.
In looking at that photo again, man that’s a runt of a bird. The crows/ravens that I see here in the southwest picking at stuff on the side of the road could probably carry Sir Ravenmaster Derrick Coyle away. Also I don’t think he’d be holding the bird so close, at least more than one time.
exhelodrvr, presumably you know about the movie and book about those wild parrots.
The movie garnered favorable reviews, but it didn’t drag me into the theaters. Maybe when it comes around on cable…
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