The Ravenmaster

by Christopher Skaife

  He lived with the birds, that’s how. He observed them. He spent time with them. As he explained in the preface to Barnaby Rudge, “The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor.” Scholars believe that during his lifetime Dickens in fact kept three or four ravens, the first of whom, Grip, liked to nip the ankles of Dickens’s children, whereupon he was barred from the house and banished outside. Unfortunately, just a few weeks after Dickens wrote about his idea of putting a raven in a novel, Grip died, as a result of having drunk or eaten some lead paint.

  Dickens replaced Grip with two new birds: a second raven, also called Grip, and an eagle. The second Grip, according to Dickens’s eldest daughter, Mamie, was “mischievous and impudent” and was eventually succeeded by a third Grip, who was so dominating that the family’s large mastiff, Turk, even allowed him to eat from his bowl.

  A true measure of Dickens’s affection for the first Grip is that he had him stuffed and mounted in a case which he kept above his desk. (Actually, Dickens made a bit of a habit of stuffing his dead pets. When his cat Bob died, for example, he had one of his paws made into a letter opener.) After Dickens’s death in 1870, a sale was held of his effects and the stuffed Grip eventually made it to America, where he can be seen in the Free Library in Philadelphia. A trip to see Grip in Philadelphia is another one of those adventures I’ve promised myself one day, though we do in fact have a perfectly good stuffed raven of our own here at the Tower. We have a little private museum on the ground floor of the Queen’s House, which is not open to the public, but in there you’ll find a rather handsome stuffed raven standing to attention on a perch in a very fine carved wooden case. A plaque on the case reads, “Black Jack, whose death was occasioned by the fearful sound of cannon upon the funeral of H. G. (His Grace) the Duke of Wellington, late Constable of the Tower of London, anno 1852.” Some people have suggested that Black Jack may himself have been one of Dickens’s birds, but I have seen no conclusive proof. What I do know is that several of the Tower ravens have been named in honor of Dickens’s raven, as is our current Gripp, and that one of Gripp’s earlier namesakes was resident during World War Two, he and his mate Mabel and another raven named Pauline being the only ravens to survive the Luftwaffe’s bombing of the Tower, though alas, the Tower records suggest that after surviving the war, Pauline was killed by Mabel and Gripp. A truly tragic Tower tale.

  Of course, the influence of Dickens’s Grip goes way beyond the naming of our birds. Dickens was a great celebrity, and a bit like celebrities today with their shar-peis and French bulldogs, he helped set a trend. Thanks to Dickens and Grip, ravens became fashionable—maybe that’s where the Yeoman Warders got the idea of importing a few tame ravens into the Tower in the 1880s? I offer this idea as a fruitful area of research to any corvidologists and Dickensians out there.

  If Dickens was responsible for the interest in ravens in Britain—just as he’s supposed to have invented the modern Christmas—it was Edgar Allan Poe who brought the birds to prominence in America.

  Poe’s poem “The Raven” caused something of a sensation when it was first published in 1845. According to one of his biographers, it is “the most popular lyric poem in the world.” It’s certainly well-known around the world: it even features in an episode of The Simpsons, which really does prove its canonical status.

  Interestingly, Poe came to his raven through Dickens. In 1841 Poe was living in Philadelphia and was the editor of Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, in which Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge was being serialized. Poe reviewed the novel favorably—describing the character of Grip as “intensely amusing”—and in fact he met Dickens himself during Dickens’s six-month visit to the United States in 1842. I’ve not been able to find any direct evidence of Poe’s indebtedness to Dickens’s Grip and Barnaby Rudge, but most Poe scholars seem to be in agreement that Poe was inspired by the book to produce his own famous tale of a talking raven in which “Once upon a midnight dreary,” a forlorn student is thinking about his lost love Lenore. In Poe’s poem, the student opens his window when he hears a tapping outside and a raven enters his room, perches upon a bust of Pallas, and when asked “Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” the raven replies, rather enigmatically, “Nevermore,” a word which he repeats in response to every one of the student’s questions. In his dialogue with the raven, the forlorn lover begins to despair. Can I recite the poem? Absolutely! Have I taught the ravens to say “Nevermore”? Absolutely not.

  Poe explained the rationale for his poem in his essay on “The Philosophy of Composition”:

  I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven—the bird of ill omen—monotonously repeating the one word, “Nevermore,” at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked myself—“Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?” Death—was the obvious reply. “And when,” I said, “is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?” From what I have already explained at some length, the answer, here also, is obvious: “When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world—and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.”

  All of which brings us inevitably to the melancholy topic of ravens and death.

  24

  DEATH AND THE RAVEN

  Some people have a morbid fascination with ravens. I can understand why. They’ve been associated throughout history with death and doom and all things related to what the poet John Milton calls the “raven-down / Of darkness.” As you probably know, collective nouns for a group of ravens include an “unkindness” and a “conspiracy.” When humans were hunters, ravens were our companions—they came with us to find food and they were always there when there was food to be found, so right from the start of our culture they’ve been closely identified with hunting and with killing. It may be no coincidence then that I have spent so much of my life with ravens and feel comfortable around them: they are the soldier’s natural ally. There’s the story told by the Roman historian Livy, of Marcus Valerius fighting a giant Gaul—a real David and Goliath–type story—in which a raven assists the brave Valerius, who subsequently becomes known as Valerius Corvus. In the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, the raven was believed to be the incarnation of Verethragna, the god of victorious battles, and in the Mabinogion, the great Welsh collection of medieval tales about the ancient Britons, there’s a story about the chieftains Arthur and Owein battling against each other, Owein with a band of magical ravens. And of course the Viking chiefs would go into battle bearing their raven standards. I think Skaife is a Viking name, by the way, so Chris “Corvus” Skaife … what do you think? It’s got a ring to it, hasn’t it?

  Brave, ruthless, at home in war, and equipped with their own natural weapon—a bill as good as any axe or razor—ravens were renowned for following soldiers into battle in anticipation of rich pickings on the battlefield. They’re omnivores, remember: they eat anything, and I mean anything. In the memorable words of Reginald Bosworth Smith in Bird Life and Bird Lore, their diet ranges “from a worm to a whale”—but they are particularly fond of carrion, including human carrion. (Execution sites in Britain were often known as the “ravenstone”—there’s one up round Smithfield Market, where I go to collect meat for the birds.) Their reputation for feasting on flesh was soon matched by a reputation for feasting on souls: people used to say that ravens would sit on the roof of a house of the dead and the dying and wait for the soul to come up the chimney so they could gobble it down. It’s ironic that I spend so much time feeding them, because rather more often they have fed on us!

  It’s perhaps no surprise, then, given their association with death and suf
fering, that the ravens are an important part of the tragic stories we tell at the Tower—including the tale of the last execution ever to take place here.

  On the night of January 31, 1941, a man named Josef Jakobs parachuted out of a German plane and into the cold, quiet countryside of Ramsey Hollow in rural Huntingdonshire. Unfortunately for him, he broke his ankle on landing. Realizing that he couldn’t continue with his mission, he fired two shots in the air with his pistol in the hope that it would attract attention—which it certainly did. Two farmers found him while out walking their dogs and alerted the police, whereupon it was discovered that Mr. Jakobs had in his possession a radio, maps, a large quantity of cash, and a codebook which he had attempted to destroy. He was put on trial at the beginning of August 1941. The charge was simple: “Committing treachery, in that you at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire on the night of 31 January 1941/1 February 1941 descended by parachute with intent to help the enemy.” He was swiftly convicted of being a Nazi spy and was sentenced to death by firing squad. The death warrant was passed to the Constable of the Tower:

  LD/SR A(s) 1 MOST SECRET

  To: The Constable of H.M. Tower of London.

  13th August 1941.

  Sir,

  I have the honour to acquaint you that JOSEF JAKOBS, an enemy alien, has been found guilty of an offence against the Treachery Act 1940 and has been sentenced to suffer death by being shot.

  The said enemy alien has been attached to the Holding Battalion, Scots Guards for the purpose of punishment and the execution has been fixed to take place at H.M. Tower of London on Friday the 15th August 1941 at 7.15am.

  Sgd. Sir Bertram N. Sergison-Brooke,

  Lieutenant-General Commanding London District.

  According to legend, just before the condemned man was escorted to his fate on the rifle range in the Casemates, just a few yards from my little house, a raven hopped down from Tower Green and stood croaking at the assembled executioners. An officer tried his best to drive the raven away but to no avail. Jakobs was blindfolded and the officer gave a silent signal to the firing squad. It was not until the body was removed to the Tower morgue that the raven returned to his companions on Tower Green.

  There are all sorts of stories about the ravens of the Tower having an uncanny knowledge of impending death or disaster. Only recently one of our Tower residents told me that he was out watering his pot plants when Merlina perched on a post outside his house and croaked at him continually, something she had never ever done before. He wondered if Merlina somehow knew that he had recently been seriously ill.

  Stories about death and doom and ravens are one thing. Stories about the death of ravens, well, they’re another thing entirely and are much more difficult to tell. Before I go on, and before you judge me, I should point out that it’s not uncommon for humans to grieve over birds, just as we grieve over any other animals. Mozart kept a starling, for example, which he named Star, which he bought for thirty-four kreuzer, from a shop in Vienna in 1784: the bird could sing the opening theme from the finale of his Piano Concerto no. 17 in G major, K453. When Star died, Mozart gave him a proper funeral and wrote an elegy in his memory. I’m no Mozart, but like all of the Ravenmasters, I certainly know what it’s like to lose a bird.

  Presented to the Tower in November 1995, Raven Thor was already four and a half years old on arrival, well into adulthood. We normally allow new ravens time to settle in before we release them to roam around the grounds, so Thor was kept in the hospital cage for a month while he adjusted to the surrounding area, the noise, and most important, the other ravens. He’d obviously been “humanized” and was used to socializing with people before being presented to the Tower. His human vocalizations were particularly good and he liked to greet everybody with a hearty “Good morning,” much to the amusement of visitors and unsuspecting members of staff. He was such a friendly bird. It was Thor who was perched on the wooden steps leading up to the White Tower on the occasion of the official visit by Vladimir Putin and who greeted Putin with his deep bass “Good morning.” He’d say hello to anybody, Thor.

  Once he’d settled in, Thor liked nothing better than to spend his days hanging around on Tower Green, occasionally interacting with the other ravens, but generally keeping to himself. He made absolutely no effort to find a partner until one fine autumn morning he was spotted up close and personal with Munin. First Munin fanned out her tail. Then she fluffed up her feathers. And then she bowed her head in the traditional raven courtship ritual. She gave the distinctive knocking sound that female ravens like to make during courtship—and boom! She had him in her clutches. Thor was putty in her talons. He immediately succumbed to her advances and they became an item, preening and croaking to each other all day long. It was love at first peck.

  At the time I was an assistant to the Ravenmaster Rocky Stones. One day I was on duty, getting the ravens up, feeding them, letting them roam free. I can tell you the exact date: February 6, 2010. A Saturday. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  I remember clearly that Thor and Munin spent the day exploring the scaffolding that had recently been erected on the west side of the White Tower. Workmen had placed large wooden boards at the base of the scaffolding to stop the birds from getting in. The boards were painted gray to blend in with the surrounding stone walls. Elsewhere, fine netting was cable-tied to the poles, preventing the ravens from getting through the gaps and climbing up the scaffold. At least that was the idea. In practice it didn’t work. I’ve seen ravens figure out entry and exit routes that you would simply never imagine a bird being able to work out. They are masters of escape and evasion. They’d do well on a Special Forces course. If a raven wants to get away, it will find a way.

  I’d been working at my post for most of day when I realized that Munin and Thor had disappeared off my raven radar. Even though I couldn’t see them, I somehow had a sense that they were no longer in the right place. Even back then I’d developed the habit of thinking about the birds all the time. Where are they? What are they up to? What have they eaten? Might they be injured? Are they okay? When people ask what it’s like being the Ravenmaster I sometimes say that it’s like going to a supermarket with seven young children, all of whom run off up and down the aisles in different directions. You have to be keyed up and switched on the whole time. You have to develop a sixth sense.

  The Tower was about to close, so I decided to wait for lockdown before conducting a proper search. It would be much easier once the public had all departed—and you’d be surprised how quickly the duty supervisor and his Yeoman Warders can clear the Tower of visitors at the end of the day.

  “All’s-up!” came the call, which is the traditional signal to lift the drawbridges in preparation for our nighttime routine. It’s our signal that the Tower is ours again.

  And so I began my search for Munin and Thor.

  Searching for the birds when they go missing is a bit like a game of hide-and-seek. Except you’ve got eighteen acres of the Tower to search. And you’re looking for a creature that can fly. And blends into the shadows.

  Half an hour passed and then an hour as I searched everywhere in the Inner Ward, checking all the normal haunts. I tried everywhere, and eventually I had to admit defeat.

  The light was fading. The Tower had fallen into its state of tranquility. The shouts and screams of excited children had disappeared, and the only sound that could be heard was the relentless hum of the city outside. I knew I didn’t have long. If the ravens are left out at night in the dark, injured or feeding or simply resting at ground level, they’re easy prey for the foxes.

  I sat down heavily and waited, listening for any sign that would indicate where the birds could be. In the military we’d call it a combat indicator, something that stands out from the normal pattern, that doesn’t quite fit, something that might reveal the whereabouts of your enemies.

  You have to be careful, of course, when listening out for combat indicators: you can get it badly wrong. I can remember once when my team
and I were tasked with conducting an overwatch on a muddy track in County Fermanagh that crossed the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, a known crossing point used by the IRA to traffic weapons and explosives across the border at night. We’d selected a steep-sided hedge that gave us a bit of cover and protection from view, a typical Northern Irish hedge thick with brambles and foliage and with barbed wire twisted deep within. Getting over these sorts of hedges was affectionately known by us as the Fermanagh Wobble and it made getting into position particularly challenging. But eventually, under the cover of darkness, we clambered over, lay down, and began our watch.

  It was pouring, as it always seemed to do when we were out on patrol. I swear even the clouds knew when it was time for us to leave base.

  Hour after hour passed as we lay silently, listening to the sounds of the countryside. The world is strange at night. You start thinking dark thoughts. Then suddenly something stirred in the distance and we heard someone cough. This was it. Something was going down! There was another cough and then another. Someone was at the border crossing, waiting for an exchange of weapons. This was our time! We were about to foil an attack. We would catch an IRA cell. We would be heroes.

  We called for backup and guided the satellite patrols toward the coughing.

  Except there was no IRA cell exchanging weapons. We were not destined to become heroes. In fact, we were made to look like absolute fools. The coughing was coming from a herd of damned cows! At night a cow’s cough can sound uncannily like a human’s.

  Lesson: Think before you act. A lesson we would all do well to learn.