Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses!”
Winter’s Tale, Act ii. Sc. 3.
As in the case of the owl, it appears that ravens’ feathers were employed by the witches of old in their incantations; for it was believed that the wings of this bird carried contagion with them wherever they appeared. Marlowe, in his Jew of Malta, speaks of—
… “the sad presaging raven, that tolls
The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings.”
Hence the curse which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Caliban:—
“As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’d