The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain in World War II more

Rainer Poppinghege (Hrsg.) TIERE IM KRIEG Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart Ferdinand Schoningh Paderborn • Munchen ■ Wien • Zurich The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain in World War II1 Boria Sax The way in which countries destroy one another and themselves through war is difficult to grasp, let alone to explain. From a zoological point of view, war does not seem to be natural. Though other animals from ants to chimpanzees may indulge in group combat, these skirmishes have none of the complexity, the persistence, and the systematic ruthlessness of human wars. But war appears not only unnatural but also uncivilized. Behaviour that would be considered appallingly anti-social in a civilian context is expected and even considered heroic in time of war. Killing and arson are rewarded with medals rather than time in jail. Rape, torture, and pillage may no longer be overtly approved of in war, but they are widely practiced and very often excused. The values and expectations that normal people live by in time of peace are placed in abeyance or reversed. War is a repository for aggressive, frenzied, destructive, suicidal, and irrational impulses that must be exorcised from civil society.2 And yet war has persisted throughout history, and times of peace have been hardly more than occasional brief interludes. Furthermore, the fascination with war pervades our society even in times of relative peace from ancient epics to the video games of today. Wars stand at the beginnings of civilizations and are celebrated in national epics such as the Iliad and the Ramayana. Historical ep- ochs are traditionally divided by wars and even by battles, and warriors from Gilgamesh to Washington are celebrated as the founders of nations.' Wars create a radical disruption of accepted habits, traditions, and expecta- tions.4 People can no longer go about their normal routines, and the immanent prospect of disaster and even death compels them to rethink cherished values. There is a strong analogy between the culture of war and that of peacetime with, respectively, the unconscious and conscious minds. But lifting of usual restraints and inhibitions does not only open the way for violent behaviour. It can eventually lead to new technologies, new systems of government, and new mythologies. This paper is in part adapted from a book manuscript by the author tentatively entitled The Ravens in the Tower of London. According to the founder of psychoanalysis, war is an expression of the death instinct, while civilization is an expression of the life force. See: Sigmund Freud: Beyond the Pleasure Prin- ciple, trans. J. Strachey, Rev. ed., London 1961. 1 John Keegan: A History of Warfare, New York 1994, p. 386. 4 "Not only warriors are privileged to undergo the profound psychological transformation that separates peace from war. Whole societies may be swept up into a kind of 'altered state* marked by emotional intensity and a fixation on totems representing the collectivity: sacred images, implements, or in our own time, yellow ribbons and flags." Barbara Ehrenreich: Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War, New York 1997, p. 13. 200 Sax A father reads to a little girl as a raven looks on. (Foto: Boria Sax) This paper examines one such myth, that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower of London. It refers to a group of six to eight ravens that are kept at the Tower and cared for by one of the Beefeaters known as the Yeoman Ravenmaster. They are allowed to run freely during the day, but their wings are trimmed on one side so they cannot fly very far. This myth does not go back to remote times, as is usually assumed, but only back to the last year or so of World War II. People have generally thought that it must date from an- tiquity, since such a superstition seems a bit anachronistic in a sophisticated, industrialized society of the twentieth century. The story of its origin shows that people of historically recent times have by no means lost the capacity for creating myths, especially when challenged by a crisis such as a major war. War as Sacrifice Genocide is now considered perhaps the most heinous of all crimes, yet perpe- trators of this such as the Joshua, Alexander, Caesar, and Charlemagne are celebrated as heroes today. Taking, or even ownership, of slaves is considered a crime of almost comparable proportions, yet we are generally willing to ex- cuse it as practiced by such figures as King Solomon, Mohammed, and George Washington. How do we explain such paradoxical judgments? It is not The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain 201 enough to say that these renowned leaders lived in less civilized times, so we must make allowances for them. The periods when they governed are remem- bered not only with nostalgia but also veneration. At least for those who ad- here to their traditions, the times of the legendary rulers appear not ''primitive" but morally superior to our own. The most plausible explanation is that pro- vided by the theory of Rene Girard - that the violence of those leaders is ren- dered holy by virtue of standing at the beginning of an exalted civilization. According to Girard, the aura of sacredness that pervades tales of collective origins results from violence at the time of foundation, which is ritualistically enacted but only vaguely recalled. War occurs when aggression that threatens the cohesion of a social group is redirected against an external target. Mythic wars that came at the beginning of civilization such as that between Hellas and Troy were originally civil wars, in which one side later came to be defined as alien. To put things a bit differently, war is an attempt to revive the sense of communal solidarity that comes originally from shared participation in vio- lence. 3 In the words of Girard, "Any phenomenon associated with the acts of remembering, commemorating, and perpetuating unanimity that springs from the murder of a surrogate victim can be termed religious.'"' Modern warriors seek to render their own acts of violence sacred through identification with these illustrious founders and the times in which they lived. Perhaps the most dramatic example may be that of the Nazis, who identified with the ancient Aryans and other warrior societies of the remote past. The killings in the Nazi death camps, on a scale far beyond any explanation in terms of reason or pragmatism, suggest a blood sacrifice. Such an offering would certainly be consistent with the paganism of leaders such as Himmler.7 But there are gaps in the theory of Girard, which probably render it impos- sible to confirm. How can we verify that we are indeed re-enacting acts of primal violence, when we do not, at least on a conscious level, know exactly what these acts were? We do not even know just how to look for traces of such events, for we cannot say when or where they have occurred. For Girard, to rediscover these acts is not only an intellectual but also a moral mission, and its accomplishment would free humankind from the compulsion to repeat them endlessly. The answer lies in our myths, especially those that tell of the foundations of civilizations, peoples, eras, or of the world itself. All of these, according to Girard, these myths tell of the primal violence, yet in a distorted way. Contrary to the claims of Girard himself,8 his theory is not fully "scientific," at least as we generally understand the term, since it is hard to think of any particular data which could definitively prove or disprove it. Nevertheless, the 5 Rene Girard: Violence and the Sacred, trans. P. Gregory. Baltimore 1993. p. 249. 6 Girard. Violence, p. 315. 7 Boria Sax: Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats and the Holocaust New York 2(K)0. p.151-158. Rene Girard: The Scapegoat, trans. P. Gregory, Baltimore 1989. pp. 95-99. 202 Sax theory is helpful in that it gives us an analytic framework with which it is pos- sible to discuss coherently such elusive and paradoxical behavior as that of human beings in war. That is no small accomplishment. If the theory cannot give us scientific answers, it appeals to intuitively recognized patterns that are traditionally the province of the humanities. For that very reason, it can help us to address moral and philosophical questions that are beyond the scope of science. The Ravens in the Tower of London Girard argues his position by attempting to reduce a vast range of mythologi- cal and historical materials to the symbolism of blood sacrifice, often by fill- ing in gaps in our records or reconstructing earlier versions of tales. Much of his analysis is speculative, but in the Tower of London the symbolism of blood sacrifice is perhaps as clear as it could be without quite being made ex- plicit. Since at least about the last quarter of the nineteenth century, executions in the past have been an obsession at the Tower of London, particularly in the tourist industry.1' The beheadings at the Tower are solemnly commemorated at a plaque known as "the scaffold," which allegedly marks the site where seven illustrious prisoners at the Tower were decapitated.10 All are almost invariably presented as innocent victims at least, while guides to the Tower consistently portray Ann Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey as martyrs. The scaffold strongly suggests an altar for blood sacrifice. Like a pagan altar, particularly as imag- ined in Victorian times, it is a place where killing is always performed with elaborate ceremony. The sacrificial victims are royalty or high nobility. The killing is fundamentally neither punitive nor technocratic, and its ultimate pur- pose is to magically regenerate the kingdom." According to Girard, a sacrificial victim is initially heaped with abuse and scorn, as the community heaps its entire guilt on to the scapegoat. After execu- tion or banishment, however, the victim becomes an object of veneration, for restoring the solidarity of the community and freeing it from the burden of sin. The executions at the Tower may be a crime perpetrated by rulers, yet they are finally placed in the service of patriotic solidarity. As one popular history of the Tower of the mid-nineteenth century, dedicated to Queen Victoria, put it. 9 Peter Hammond: "Epitome of England's history," in: Royal Armouries Yearbook 4 (1999), p. 144-174, here p. 159. 10 "Generations of children have been imbued with the sinister side of the Tower's history, per- petuating the myth that it was almost exclusively a place of dark deeds, torture, and execu- tion." Edward Impey/Geoffrey Parnell. The Tower of London: The Official Illustrated His- tory, London 2000, p. 111. 1 These are characteristics of human sacrifice especially emphasized not only by Girard but also by cultural anthropologists of the Victorian era such as James George Frazier. See, for example: James George Frazer/Theodor H. Gaster: The New Golden Bough, New York 1959. The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain 203 in the Tower "The soil beneath your feet is richer in blood than many a great battle-field; for out upon this sod has been poured, from generation to genera- tion, a stream of the noblest life in our land."12 Another strong suggestion of blood sacrifice is the tone of solemnity which marked the tours of the Tower, especially the instruments of execution and torture, by Beefeaters in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We have several visual depictions of such tours, and they are very consistent in style. They generally take place in semi-darkness, with the room illuminated by a single dramatic beam of light. The warders, with grave expressions and ceremonial robes, are directing attention to implements of torture and execu- tion. Well dressed visitors are looking on with in terror and awe. Children are featured prominently. One excellent example is a painting entitled "A visit to the Tower," exe- cuted by George Bernard O'Neil in 1862. The Yeoman Warder who is leading the tour appears to be not simply wise and dignified but an almost a godlike figure. He solemnly points to the neck a boy kneeling on the chopping block. Another boy raises a closed umbrella like a sword above the block, while sev- eral other children gaze on in terror. Yet another boy looks up pleadingly at the Yeoman Warder. One little girl, hardly able to endure the sight, huddles in a corner and is comforted by her mother." The Tower itself, with its arches, pillars, and dim light, resembles a temple, with the Yeoman Warder for a priest and the chopping block for an altar. The ravens, far from being ancient, were brought into the Tower around 1870 for the purpose of dramatizing the tales of execution, and to deflect some of the fear and anger that the grim stories aroused. Ravens had long been noto- rious for congregating on battlefields and places of execution, and their pres- ence at scaffolds had already long been a cliche in Victorian times,14 and we can still see it for example, on the cover of countless horror stories and detec- tive novels. The first extended description of the ravens in the Tower of London comes from the Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki in a phantasmagoric account of his tour first published in 1906. The imagery of blood sacrifice is almost unmis- takable, when the author imagines an execution: William Hepworth Dixon: Her Majesty's Tower, (2 vols.), New York 1884, p. 16. 3 See Figure 2. Additional illustrations of tours at the Tower of London from the latter nine- teenth century are reproduced in Hammond, pp. 158-160. 14 Boria Sax: Medievalism, Paganism, and the Tower Ravens, in: The Pomegranate: The Inter- national Journal of Pagan Studies 9/1 (2007), pp. 62-77. It is possible that the Tower authori- ties may have been influenced by a German legend of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa which also makes ravens into a national symbol. According to the tale, Barbarossa is not dead but sleeping in Mount Kyffhauser. Every hundred years he wakes up briefly and asks, "Are the ravens still Hying about the mountain," then goes back to sleep when told they are. When the ravens disappear at the end of time, the Emperor will ride out and a new age will begin. See: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm (2 vols.), trans. Daniel Ward, Philadelphia 1816-1818/1981. vol. 2/#23. 204 Sax A Visit to the Tower by Bernard O'Neil (Christopher Wood Gallery, London) A raven descends, hunching its wings, its black beak protruding, it stares at peo- ple. I feel as if the rancor of a hundred years of blood have congealed and taken the form of a bird so as to guard this unhappy place for ever. In the blowing wind an elm tree rustles. I look over, and on the branches, too, there is a raven. After a while another one flies down. Where they have come from I do not know. Beside them a young woman with a boy of about seven is standing staring at the ravens. Her Greek nose and beautiful, polished gem-like eyes and the un- dulations of curves shaping her pure white neck moved my heart more than a lit- tle. The child looks up at the woman and says with curiosity, "Ravens, ravens." Then, imploring her, "The ravens seem to be cold. I'd like to give them some bread." The woman says quietly, "Those ravens do not want anything to eat." The child asks, "Why?" The woman, staring fixedly at the ravens with eyes that seem to be floating in the midst of her long lashes, says only, "There are five ra- vens," and does not reply to the child's question. She looks lost in thought, as if reflecting alone over something. I wonder whether there is not some strange karma between this woman and the ravens. She speaks the raven's mood as if speaking of her own and declares that, although only three ravens are visible, there are five.15 The young woman appears to have supernatural knowledge, and she fluently reads inscriptions that the narrator cannot begin to decipher. Gradually we re- alize that the woman is Lady Jane Gray, the beautiful young queen who ruled 15 Natsume Soseki: The Tower of London: Tales of Victorian London, trans. Damian Flanagan. London 1906/2004, p. 102f. The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain 205 England for nine days before being deposed and eventually executed on the orders of Mary Tudor. The boys are the two princes who perished in the Tower, possibly at the order of King Richard L All three, together with others who died in the Tower, have returned to haunt it in the form of ravens. Especially noteworthy in the passage just quoted is the dual symbolism of the ravens, which at first seem totally malign, representing as the cruel power of the state. But this symbolism is immediately reversed, and a raven repre- sents a martyred queen, who was renowned for her beauty, learning, gentle- ness, and piety. This bold and startling transformation is worthy of a master novelist, but the theory of Girard offers an explanation for it. For each of the executed prisoners, the raven is what he calls a "monstrous double," a de- formed image created by projecting the sins of the community on to the sacri- ficial victim.16 This function of the ravens is illustrated in "Quoth the Raven" by Enid Dinnis from in the American Catholic magazine Commonweal in 1931, proba- bly the first substantial article ever devoted to the Tower Ravens in the popu- lar press, the birds stand in metonymically for a brutal regime. The ravens are described as creatures of the purest evil. The author tells that he was startled on a visit to the Tower, when one of the ravens gazed at him and said, "Hullo." This moved Dinnis into a reverie about executions and torture cham- bers, and: He (the raven) eyed the note-book in my hand — I always carry one at the Tower — and the expression in his eye became cruel and sinister. I recognized that I was speaking to a bird of prey. He hopped along his perch, nearer to the site of the executioner's block, and sat with his head turned toward the barracks erected alongside the Church of St. Peter in Chains. I followed his gaze, past the other ravens pecking at their largesse, to the great, grey building which 1 usually make a point of ignoring, as any antiquarian would. It recalled the fact that the Tower had been closed to the public during the war for the very obvious reason that it was required for military uses. Internment and other purposes. The Tower of London had come to life during the war. There had been a grim story told of the enemy's spies shot at daybreak, over yonder. The raven was sharpening his beak on the rail surrounding the ancient place of execution. There was something horribly suggestive in that action. Dinnis contemplates the destructive power of modern weapons, but tries to re- assure himself that a war on the scale of the last cannot occur again. The ra- ven, in its wicked wisdom, appears to know better.17 The clear implication in the article is that the ravens had secretly been used to dispose of the bodies of executed prisoners in World War I, and the birds expected even bigger meals in the wars to come. Immediately after World War II, two ravens, Mabel and McDonald, disap- peared. Mabel, or her body, has never been found, but on July 8, 1947, the de- 16 Girard, Violence, pp. 160-164. 17 Edward Dinnis: Quoth the Raven, in: The Tower of London, ed. C. Hibbert, London 1978. pp. 158f. 206 Sax capitated corpse of Tower Raven McDonald was uncovered by the Ravenmas- ter in a pit by the southwest corner of the White Tower.IX There were not, so far as I am able to tell, any references to the event in the British press, but The New York Times featured the story rather prominently on page six. An article began, "Murder in the Tower of London, which superstition brands as a threat to the destiny of Britain and her empire, was revealed today." According to the article, the killing was taken very seriously indeed since, "...a detachment of eight soldiers from the Second Battalion, Irish Guards, has kept a vigil at the raven loft, and the murderer is still at large." Finally, the article contained what is possibly the first ever mention in print of the legend that makes the ra- vens protectors of Britain, adding "Tradition has it that the day the last of the king's ravens disappears from the tower, the walls of London's medieval for- tress will crumble and her dominions will cease to exist."'9 The fact that the raven was beheaded strongly suggests that the killing was ritualistic, perhaps intended as retaliation for the prisoners who had been be- headed long ago. It may additionally have been intended as a way to magically destroy the British Empire by killing one of its guardians. Assistant Raven- master Thomas Trent told me that a soldier, who by that time was terminally ill from cancer, once came to the Tower and sadly confessed to having killed a raven in his younger days. The Ravens in World War II The history of the ravens at the Tower of London has, from their inception, been a progression from demonization as the harbingers of death around the scaffold to sacralization as the embodiment of Britain. This change has taken place in less than a century, a short time in historical terms, yet so gradually that almost nobody was aware of it. This might seem paradoxical at first, but the pattern is very far from unique. The intimacy of the sacred and the pro- fane, categories that often seem to flow into one another, is a phenomenon that has long been pondered by theologians,2" anthropologists,21 and others. Many diabolic figures were once divinities, while sacred ones have once been re- viled. The serpent of Eden in the Bible, for example, was once a deity, a form of a primeval goddess. It eventually became a symbol of the Devil in Judeo- Christian tradition, but was revived by the Gnostics and alchemists, who made the snake a symbol of wisdom. 18 Bridget Clifford, Senior Archivist at the Tower of London, personal email to the author, 2006. 19 Reuters New Service: London Tower Mystery: A Raven Loses its Head, New York Times, 15 July 1947, p. 6. 211 Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy, trans. J. W. Harvey, Oxford 1958. 1 Mary Douglas: Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, New York 2002. The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain 207 World War II marks the turning point in the public perception of the Tower Ravens, when they went from being maligned to being treasured. War unified the country as seldom before, rendering sacrifices apart from those made as part of the armed struggle unnecessary. The dismantling of the British Empire, begun almost immediately at the end of World War II, removed a major source of guilt, thus making it less necessary to project these feelings onto scapegoats such as the Tower Ravens. Furthermore, the comparative lack of military engagements meant that the country no longer required the same kind or degree of solidarity. The history of the ravens in the Tower of London can be explained on two levels. We have so far looked primarily at the underlying logic of myth, in which their history appears as a gradual movement from scorn and terror to sacralization. There is also the level of narrative, in which the change is the product of a chain of causes and effects, which by themselves appear almost accidental. These two approaches offer very different kinds of explanations for the present status of the ravens, but they are not by any means incompatible. To the contrary, they provide us with an almost unique opportunity to docu- ment the origins of an idea that has attained near mythic status. For those who had lived in London during World War II, the terror of war was no longer known only from newspapers or even letters from soldiers on the front. A total of 29,890 civilians were killed by bombing in London during World War II, and another 50,000 were badly injured.22 Since there had been no way to tell in advance when or where the bombs would fall, the victims were largely random, like arbitrary acts of fate. The Tower of London, closed to visitors for the duration of the war, was hit by fifteen conventional bombs, three missiles and numerous incendiaries. Within the Tower, twenty three people and two ravens were killed, though the damage to the building itself was surprisingly minor.21 That the ravens should have been kept in the Tower at all, in the absence of any tourists, is itself notable. Animals at the London Zoo, by contrast, had been euthanized or evacuated. The entire aquarium was drained, and the manatees were shot.24 Food for human beings was severely rationed; in June of 1941 the weekly allotment for an adult was four ounces of butter, four ounces of bacon, and 45 cents worth of meat.25 Many people regarded feeding animals as indulgent, though animal welfare organizations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and the Canine Defense League lobbied intensely on behalf of pets.2h The ravens were not necessarily taking food away from people, since they could have foraged for rodents or even been fed animals such as pigeons that were killed in the blitz. The most ~ Stephen In wood: A History of London. New York 1998. p. 779. 23 A. W. Rowse: The Tower of London in the History of England, New York 1972. p. 256. 24 Inwood, p. 781. Brinley Thomas: War-Time Britain, New York 1942, p. 9. 26 Jilly Cooper: Animals in War (new edition), London 2001, pp. 169f. 208 Sax likely explanation is that by the start of the war the ravens had already begun to be thought of as patriotic symbols. How the Legend Started In July of 1944, a bit less than a year before the surrender of Germany, a few influential people in the British government started to notice the ravens. A memorandum in the Ministry of works dated 12 July 1944 reads as follows: Lord Castlereagh came to the Parliamentary Secretary this morning with quite an incredible story. Watney's Brewery at Pimlico, with which he has connections, have had a raven for a mascot for many years. Their raven has died, however, and with so many flying bombs about, the work people want another one as soon as possible to bring them luck. Lord Castlereagh came to us because the only place in which he knew that ravens were kept in captivity is the Tower of Lon- don. Can we let him have one? He did not mention any question of payment but I'm sure that if we have to charge, he won't want a guarantee of his money back if the Brewery is hit!27 This is the earliest reference to the developing legend that I have been able to find, as well as the first time the ravens seem to have come to the attention of highly influential people in the government. The request elicited consider- able discussion, and many people working in the Tower were amused. "A Castlereagh connected to a brewery!" began one memo on the request, hu- morously suggesting that such associations were surprising for the scion of such a noble family. In fact, Lord Castlereagh had no formal connection to the brewery, and may simply have approached the Tower on government busi- ness. Prime Minister Churchill considered beer very important to the morale of troops, and was concerned that soldiers on the front receive a full ration.:s The memo went on to explain that only the Constable of the Tower, appointed by the King, had the authority to dispense a raven, so they would need to await his decision. The author concluded humorously, "I hope Lord C and his staff have not forgotten their Edgar Allen Poe.... 'Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.'" Since the seventeenth century, breweries in England had occasionally kept ravens out of a belief that, as one proverb puts it, "Where there are ravens there will be good beer."29 This practice probably goes back to the earlier use of ravens as a means to sanitation in Britain. The use of grains in brewing would have meant the presence of rodents and insects, and ravens, being om- nivorous, would have done a better job of catching them than, say, cats. In ad- dition, ravens could have been fed a lot of the waste that was inevitable with such large quantities of organic material. Tony Angell, who has studied ravens "7 This and the following excerpts from the correspondence about the request by a brewery for a Tower Raven are in the National Archives of the United Kingdom. They are classified under reference # WORK 14/2394. s Hurford Janes: The Red Barrel: A History of Watney Mann. London 1963. p. 161. 29 Janes, p. 170. The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain 209 extensively, has told me that his ravens "really go after anything that moved below the size of a kitten." They avidly devoured termites or ants. But if we interpret the old saying a little broadly, as one generally does with proverbs, the "good beer" could mean "good fortune." The prophesy, though expressed in more positive terms, parallels the saying that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower of London. Several ravens had at times been lodged at the Stag Brewery and were al- lowed to roam freely from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., when they were fed and locked up for the night. They were familiar to the workers, striding proudly across the floor, croaking loudly, and sharpening their beaks on casks.1" The workers at this brewery believed that their raven, the last surviving one, would protect them from bombs, and, though people at the Tower chuckled, the idea is not entirely absurd. Researchers are now intently studying the apparent abilities of animals to sense disasters in advance. The Chinese, for example, have observed the behaviour of goldfish in an attempt to predict earthquakes. Many observers reported that animals seemed to anticipate the Indonesian tsu- nami of 2004, retreating in advance of the flood. Numerous animals were used to give warning of enemy planes in both Brit- ain and Germany during World War II, including pigeons, parrots, dogs, and cats. Typically, a pet dog might signal the approach of danger by hiding or by agitated behaviour. In the case of dogs, the ability to anticipate bombs is not easy to explain, since their sight is not very good, and, though they can pick up frequencies inaccessible to the human ear, their hearing is not much better than that of human beings." But, even if we may be skeptical about the re- ports, the fact that people looked to these animals for warning is noteworthy. There is far less reason to be skeptical about the ability of ravens to antici- pate attacks by bombers. Ravens are attuned to the sky and to currents in the air. They have excellent sight, and often seem to be aware of things approach- ing predators or cars before people can spot these. The agitated movements of the raven could have warned brewery workers of approaching of planes or bombs, before human observers could spot the dangers. A human spotter was simply a man lying on his back looking through a pair of binoculars, unable to see more than a segment of the sky at a time. It was not very interesting work, and inattention must have been a continual problem. In addition a spotter would have had to contend with the glare of the sun on bright days and the elements on dark ones. No doubt human spotters did save many lives, but the number of people killed in the blitz is a testimony to their limitations. As the war progressed, the government had mandated a complicated system of coded sounds - patterns of pips, silences and continuous rings - to be used for various kinds and degrees of danger from bombs. This was designed to en- Janes, p. 170. Rupert Sheldrake: Dogs that Know when their Owners are Coming Home: And Other Unex- plained Powers of Animals, New York 1999, pp. 256-260. 210 Sax able people to evacuate efficiently without panicking, but it could be cumber- some. The brewery workers were forbidden to use their own sirens in 1939. They tried blowing whistles to signal danger instead, but that was prohibited as well.32 The ravens might simply start calling out in fear, thus undercutting the government directives but saving workers the trouble of deciphering com- plex messages in times of emergency. The workers in the brewery could have noticed this behaviour in the ravens and used it as an alternative warning sys- tem. They would, however have refrained from talking very readily about it, as it would have seemed odd and, more significantly, would have involved flouting the procedures mandated by the authorities. Henry Johns, who had been in the Tower during World War II and became Ravenmaster from 1948 to 1967, had believed that the purpose of domesti- cated ravens under Charles II had been to serve as sentinels. According to him, the ravens had been kept in the top of the White Tower and made raucous noises that could be heard far away whenever they saw anything that sug- gested sabotage or theft." The idea could easily have been suggested to Johns by the informal use of ravens in World War II as spotters. The Stag Brewery, a large structure not far from government offices had al- ready been struck by bombs several times. On one occasion, the bomb had struck the stable of the brewery and twelve magnificent horses, used to draw barrels of beer in parades, had been killed. On another, a bomb hit the vats of the brewery, and the beer flowed out into the streets. People grabbed whatever vessels they could find and tried to scoop up as much as possible of the elixir.'4 But the ravens had not been touched. The Secretary of Parliament wrote almost a week after the request for a raven: Watney's Brewery have (sie) already asked me to give them a raven. I said we could not help as we had only three left out of five, the normal peace number. The other two passed out through enemy action. I suggest Watney's advertise in the personal columns of one of the leading daily papers; this should give them a few replies, but of course May is the month when young ravens can usually be obtained. A few more weeks of the "Robots," and we shall be wanting ravens.35 Two days later, the Tower authorities sent a note to Lord Castlereagh offering assistance in importing a raven for the brewery. This idea of ravens as protectors was extended from the brewery to Great Britain through rumors that circulated within the Tower. The origin of this legend may appear comically accidental, but the legend could not have been established if other traditions had not prepared people for it. The groundwork 2 The codes, and the changes in them, are recorded in various signs that were posted in the brewery, which are preserved the Westminster Archives, reference # 789/599/4. 33 Anonymous: Master of Ravens, in: The Star, 6 April 1953, p. 4. 34 John Watney: Beer is Best: A History of Beer. London 1974, p. 109. 5 Memorandum to F. J. Raby, Secretary of Works, Ministry of Public Works, 17 July 1944, National Archives, reference # WORK 14/2394. The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain had already been laid by the Welsh legend of Bran the blessed,36 by Victorian novels, and many other pieces of raven lore. The idea that Britain would fall if the ravens leave the Tower was easily accepted, since it seemed to echo back through centuries of British history. The Post-War Period According to a guide book published a decade after the end of the war, only a single raven, Grip, was left in the Tower." Geoffrey Parnell, however, has found a brief statement from the period among the records of the Tower that "there are none left" of the ravens.38 The ravens were considered sufficiently important that a full contingent of them had been brought back when then Tower reopened to the public on January 1, 1946.39 One of the earliest explicit mentions of the legend that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower is from a brief news report on the fourth page of The Star, a local newspaper, on 6 April 1953 about the appointment of Henry Johns as Ravenmaster. It calls the ravens "sacred birds" of the Tower and mentions the legend, which it attributes to Charles II, in passing 40 The article may have been inconspicuously buried in the paper, but it was noted by the Tower authorities and is preserved in the National Archives. Over the next few years, the legend started to find its way into books for tourists. According to one legend, which probably also dates from the period imme- diately following World War II, anybody who kills a raven in the Tower of London will be plagued by misfortune and even imminent death.41 It is possi- ble that simple admonitions that the ravens were property of the Crown and must be protected, magnified in significance by the tension and the presence of the Tower, acquired the authority of a venerable tradition. Other stories from the same approximate period also make ravens protectors of Britain. A. W. Rowse, a lover of the British Empire, later reported that, "In the 1930s a Nazi official, on tour, commented - with typical mixture of bombast and infe- riority-complex: 'Oh, in our land we have eagles.' One of the ravens heard him, and at once bit him."42 If such an exchange really took place, the official probably meant to contrast the freedom of the eagles with the domestication of their British counterparts. The ravens here represent the colonies in the British For a discussion of the legend of Bran, and how it influenced the institution of the Tower Ra- vens, see: Sax, Medievalism, pp. 63-66. E. H. Carkeet-James: His Majesty's Tower of London, 1950, p. 195. Maev Kennedy: Tower's raven mythology may be a Victorian flight of fantasy, in: The Guardian, 15 November 2004, p. I. Kennedy, p. 1. Anonymous: Master of Ravens, in: The Star (Glasgow), 6 April 1953, p. 4. Anthony D. Hippisley Coxe: Haunted Britain: A Guide to Supernatural Sites Frequented by Ghosts, Witches, Poltergeists and Other Mysterious Beings, New York 1973, p. 80. Rowse, p. 255. 212 Sax Empire, at that time the envy of the world, which, instead of rebelling as the Axis hoped, would patriotically defend their motherland. I heard on a tour from one of the Warders at the Tower that Hitler had planned, on conquering Britain, to take a mated pair of ravens from the Tower back home so they might protect Germany instead of England. Of course, were England actually conquered, that would have cast doubt on whether their presence could protect any country, though perhaps Hitler didn't think of that. The first detailed discussion of the legend that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower, so far as I can tell, was in the magazine Country Life on 3 February 1955, which states: There is a vivid tradition that the loss of the Tower ravens would presage Brit- ain's downfall. During the war there ran around a rumor that for five days no ra- ven had croaked in the Tower, and it is a queer thing that all the six birds are young ones. They are: Cora and Corax, who live on Tower Green and sleep in the boilerhouse; Charles and Cronk, and Garvie and Gunn, who live by the White Tower and sleep in cages by the Lanthorn Tower. All are fine watchdogs, "barking excitedly at any stranger at night."43 The Tower had, as already noted, been closed to the public during World War II, and the "rumor that for five days no raven had croaked in the Tower" ap- parently came from outside the walls. The reference to the ravens as keeping watch may well reflect their use as spotters for bombers not only in Watney's Brewery but also in the Tower itself. In the early 1950s, the ravens were transferred from their early cages near the scaffold to new ones across the pavement and in front of the White Tower, where they would no longer be quite so intimately associated with death. Moving the cages, though apparently a small detail, signalled a profound change in the symbolism of the ravens. Their presence had been a reminder of the barbarism of earlier times and, by implication, a testimony of progress. They now began to seem less relics of a hoary past than an integral part of the contemporary community. If, as I have maintained here, the ravens were used informally as spotters for enemy planes during World War II, they certainly contributed to their own rehabilitation. Their services would, however, have made little or no differ- ence if people in London had not become disposed to give their calls a favor- able interpretation. It would certainly have been possible, for example, to have imagined the ravens as somehow in league with enemy bombers had people been so disposed. In the perspective of Girard, the prophesy that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower can be interpreted to mean that without blood sacrifice, or at least the memory of it, the solidarity that unites the nation will disintegrate. When the ravens were moved from the scaffold, however, much of their power as a symbol was lost. Perhaps the history associated with the ravens, M. Littledale: The Tower of London Zoo, in: Country Life, 3 February 1955, p. 130. The Tower Ravens as Mascots of Britain 213 from the executions that they re-enacted to the bombs which they experienced, may without mediation have been too intense for the tourist industry. Today the ravens are national pets, which decorate postcards, refrigerator magnets, toys, and just about everything else that can be sold in souvenir shops at the Tower. But kitsch itself, while it may appear insignificant, can encode very serious themes. That is why acts of brutality from the crucifixion of Christ to the Holocaust can be so intensely commercialized.44 Those raven souvenirs exemplify that combination of obsession and forgetfulness with which we contemplate the victims of blood sacrifice. There is a strong similarity between the marketing of torture and execution at the Tower of London and the marketing of the Holocaust. In both cases, attempts to memorialize victims can often end up trivializing, distorting, or obscuring the historical record. For perspectives on the commercial exploitation of the Holocaust, see: Alvin Rosenfeld: Imagining Hitler. Bloomington 1985; Norman G. Finkelstein: The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Ex- ploitation of Jewish Suffering. New York 2(K)(): Tim Cole: Selling the Holocaust from Auschwitz to Schindler: How History is Bought. Packaged and Sold, New York 2000.