And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o’er them all, impatient for their hour.”
It is most probable that the supposed prophetic power of the raven, respecting battles and bloodshed, originated in its frequent presence on these occasions, drawn to the field of slaughter by an attractive banquet of unburied bodies of the slain. Hence poets have described this bird as possessing a mysterious knowledge of these things. The Icelanders, notwithstanding their endeavours to destroy as many as they can, yet give them credit for the gift of prophecy, and have a high opinion of them as soothsayers. And the priests of the North American Indians wear, as a distinguishing mark of their sacred profession, two or three raven skins, fixed to the girdle behind their back, in such a
manner that the tails stick out horizontally from the body. They have also a split raven skin on the head, so fastened as to let the beak project from the forehead.[64]
ITS FOOD.
The solitary habits of this bird during the nesting season are thus alluded to:—
“A barren detested vale, you see, it is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O’ercome with moss and baleful misseltoe: