Ravens make some significant appearances in my novel. The earliest legend that connects the Tower of London with a raven is the Welsh tale of the war between Brân the Blessed (King of the Britons) and the Irish leader Matholwch, who had mistreated Brân’s sister Branwen. When Brân was mortally wounded, he ordered his own followers to cut off his head and bury it beneath the White Hill (upon which the Tower now stands), facing south towards France as a talisman to protect Britain from foreign invasion. Brân is the modern Welsh word for raven.
To this day, nine ravens reside on Tower grounds, cared for by the Ravenmaster of the Yeomen. The birds’ wings are clipped so they cannot fly away. Their diet consists of fresh liver, lamb, beef, chicken, rabbit, and also biscuits soaked in blood. In winter they are also given capsules of cod liver oil. Their presence is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the Tower, with the superstition, started by Charles II, that if the ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it.
Ravens first appear in my alchemist’s origin story in which ravens protect a baby on the coast of Portugal. I also tell the legend of the Spanish monk, Vincent of Saragossa: After he was condemned to death by the Roman governor Dacian, his body was thrown in the fields, where it was guarded by ravens from being eaten by wild animals. The governor then ordered the body to be cast into the sea, but it later washed up on the shore at Cape St. Vincent (most SW point in Portugal), and again was protected by ravens. The Moors put the body in a mosque on the Cape, which the ravens also guarded. After King Afonso Henriques defeated the Moors in 1147, he sent the martyr’s body to the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora and named him the Patron Saint of Lisbon. Ravens are on the city’s coat of arms, seen in the photo below.
