Name: Bad omen? Tower of London raven missing, feared dead
Brand: theguardian.com
SKU: theguardian-com-1371
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Bad omen? Tower of London raven missing, feared dead

preview

Legend says at least six ravens must be kept at the castle or the kingdom will fallLast modified on Fri 29 Oct 2021 07.36 EDTOne of the ravens at the Tower of is feared to have died, in a potentially gloomy omen for Britain. It means that the tower is close to having fewer than six ravens, a level that would spell doom for the kingdom, according to legend.Ravenmaster Christopher Skaife confirmed that one of the birds, Merlina, known as the queen of the tower’s unkindness of ravens, is presumed dead after being missing for weeks.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Skaife said: “Merlina is a free-spirited raven and has been known to leave the tower precincts on many occasion. I’m her buddy and she normally comes back to us, but this time she didn’t. So, I do fear that she is not with us any more.” He added: “Just before Christmas, before we went into the lockdown, we were putting the ravens to bed, and she didn’t come back.”If confirmed, Merlina’s death would bring the number of ravens at the tower to just seven. According to legend if two more were to die the tower and the kingdom would fall.But Skaife said that if Merlina did not return, the tower did have a reserve raven to ensure that at least six remained.He said: “We do have seven ravens here at the Tower of London, six by royal decree. And of course I still have a spare one, so we’re OK at the moment.”In a statement on Twitter, the Tower of London said it hoped Merlina would be replaced by a chick from its raven breeding programme.Various legends associate keeping ravens at the tower with Charles II and his Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed. According to one, Charles refused to remove ravens from the tower after Flamsteed complained they were obscuring his view of the stars.According to another, Flamsteed was concerned that ravens were being persecuted at the tower after being associated with the Great Fire of London. After being advised that killing all the ravens would be a bad omen, Charles II then ordered six birds to be kept at the tower.

Legend says at least six ravens must be kept at the castle or the kingdom will fallLast modified on Fri 29 Oct 2021 07.36 EDTOne of the ravens at the Tower of is feared to have died, in a potentially gloomy omen for Britain. It means that the tower is close to having fewer than six ravens, a level that would spell doom for the kingdom, according to legend.Ravenmaster Christopher Skaife confirmed that one of the birds, Merlina, known as the queen of the tower’s unkindness of ravens, is presumed dead after being missing for weeks.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Skaife said:...

public

Matthew Weaver

TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and Guardian Unlimited, is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian and The Observer, as well as a substantial body of web-only work produced by its own staff, including a rolling news service.

theguardian.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Bad omen? Tower of London raven missing, feared dead

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS