Ravens in the Service of the Crown

There are ravens in the Tower of London.

Which may not sound that remarkable, but the reason it’s sort of weird is that ravens (Corvus corax) almost do not exist anywhere else in the British Isles.  They were largely exterminated over a century and a half ago when it was thought that they killed baby livestock.  Ravens cannot do that.  They cannot kill a healthy newborn calf, but they are carrion eaters, and when a farmer would walk out and find a dead baby calf with ravens pecking out its eyes, he would come to the wrong conclusion.  Unjustly accused, the ravens, after co-habiting with the English for many centuries, suddenly, due to some inexplicable turn in public opinion, became pariahs, victims of prejudice, and a great cleansing ensued.  A raven genocide swept across the English landscape, and as firearms became more widespread, their fate seemed sealed.  What saved them is that ravens are corvids, and can learn and teach, and they quickly started avoiding humans, and teaching their young to do the same.  Nowdays, they only exist in the highlands and the outlands, nowhere near human habitations.

Common Raven (Corvus corax) at the Tower of London
By Philippe Kurlapski,

[CC BY 1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

But a small colony nests in the Tower of London, right in the center of the city, and there is great speculation about how in the heck they ended up there.  The answer is lost to us, but the ravens have become a storied part of English society, because there is a superstition in England which goes something like this:  If the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the British government will crumble, and a horrible fate will befall all her people.

Taking no chances, the British government clipped their wings.  They can fly a little way, but not far.  There is a full-time ravenmaster at the Tower of London, and a staff to care for them, and the birds are carefully nurtured and luxuriously fed, and are very close to the hearts of the royalty-loving British public.
Administratively, the ravens are enlisted as soldiers in the British army, and each has a leg band with identification, and an attestation card like anyone else in the service of the Crown.  And they can be dismissed for unsatisfactory performance, too.  One was let go for attacking television antennas.  Another was able to fly a short distance away and took up residence in a local pub, and was discharged for conduct unbecoming.

Several decades ago one of them was kidnapped.  He was never found and the crime was never solved, and in the substantial body of English folklore that surrounds unsolved crimes, this one rates right up there with Jack the Ripper.

I saw the ravenmaster interviewed on TV once.  The interviewer politely asked him whether he actually believed this superstition, and whether he was able to take his job seriously.  A philosophical look crossed the fellow’s face.

“Well,” he said, in his charming Londoner accent, “I look a’ it this way:  if the ravens were to leave the Tower of London…and if the British government did crumble…and a ‘orrible fate did befall all her people…I’d have a lot to answer for, now wouldn’t I?”

Now you know.