Summary of:
City of Ravens: How ravens came to the Tower of London, why they stayed, and what they tell us about nature and humankind
by Boria Sax
The ravens in the Tower of London have long been among the most popular tourist attractions in Britain, visited by over two million people per year. Yet, amazingly, no previous book has been written about them, and their history has remained completely unknown until now.
This book tells how ravens actually came to the Tower of London, and how they became legendary. It is based on extensive research in British archives, as well as on many conversations with the Ravenmaster, the Yeoman Warders, the historians at the Tower, and others.
According to popular tourist guides, Charles II (reigned 1660-1685), hearing an old prophesy that Britain would fall if the ravens left the Tower, ordered that the wings of six ravens be clipped, so that they could not fly away, and their successors strut around on the field behind the White Tower till this day.
The author has found that the ravens at the Tower only since about 1880, while the legend dates from late summer of 1944. Nevertheless, the true story of the ravens has far more high drama than the accounts told to tourists.The book is filled with intriguing anecdotes and reconstructed histories: the Earls of Dunraven, who sent to first ravens to serve as avatars of the demigod Bran; the raven Jackie, who served as an unofficial spotter for enemy bombs and planes during the Blitz; the raven couple Mabel and Grip, who escaped the Tower, leaving it without ravens; the raven McDonald, ritualistically killed to sabotage the British Empire; and many more.
For the approximately 140 years that the ravens have been at the Tower, they have been variously viewed as symbols of cruelty, avatars of fate, bearers of prophesy, and cuddly national pets. In the twenty-first century, it will be more appropriate to regard them instead as symbols of the endangered natural world.
The book concludes with a proposal that the ravens continue to be kept as a colony at the Tower but no longer deprived of flight. The adventures of the ravens that can move at liberty will continually generate new stories, and provide a far more dynamic symbol of Britain.