I don’t know what it is about crows, but they’re creepy. Maybe its the way they pick at dead carcasses by the side of the road, or maybe it’s that they’re all black and look evil. Whatever it is, I don’t like them; it would seem the feeling is mutual.
Everywhere I go, crows don’t seem to like me either. For the past three summers a crow on our block has started cawing and dive bombed me every time I walk under/near it. In what I imagine to be typical cowardly crow fashion, it doesn’t dive bomb me from the front–but waits till I’ve walked by and then swoops down close to my head, so I hear this flurry of flapping and cawing getting closer and closer to me, only to see it glide safely out of my reach.
Maybe it’s payback. As a kid I remember shooting lots of birds with my pellet gun–and I’m sure there where at least a few crows along the way. Maybe all the crows in the world get together and talk about the dumb kids who try and shoot them, and put out a hit-list. Maybe I’m doomed to suffer the curse of the crow for the rest of my days.
Which is fine; crows are ugly.
However, on a more realistic note something funny does seem to be going on. You see I just moved yesterday, and already I’ve had a new crow harassing me. Less than 24 hours in a new neighborhood and I’m already a victim. Recently, I went to Washington and the same thing–I’m walking and some crows start diving at me. In fact, I seem to recall having this experience in Guelph and Korea too. Weird.
Maybe the crows feel threatened. Maybe they, like you, read my blog and have found out about my flying dreams. Maybe they’re worried I’m going to develop a device that lets humans fly by flapping their arms–allowing us to take to the air and master it, like the wheel has let us master the earth.
[Aside: in the process of writing this blog I took a break to let 'the new guy' into my old house--I walked a total of three blocks. And, was accosted by a crow.]
Perhaps I’m just afraid of crows; perhaps this is all in my head. That scene from Mel Gibson’s “The Passion,” where a crow rips out the unrepentant thief’s eye on the cross still makes me cringe. I’ve never seen Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”–but I do know they swarm and kill someone; I’m willing to bet it was a crow’s idea. Maybe I forget about all the sparrow, bluejay, and robin attacks I undergo. If birds really are out for revenge, it’d be best if I never go near a barn again; being slowly pecked to death by barn swallows isn’t how I want to go.
In mythology the crow has an important role to play. Straight from Wikipedia the source of all truth:
Long ago, near the beginning of the world, Gray Eagle was the guardian of the Sun, Moon and Stars, of fresh water, and of fire. Gray Eagle hated people so much that he kept these things hidden. People lived in darkness, without fire and without fresh water.
Gray Eagle had a beautiful daughter, and Raven fell in love with her. In the beginning, Raven was a snow-white bird, and as a such, he pleased Gray Eagle’s daughter. She invited him to her father’s longhouse.
When Raven saw the Sun, Moon and stars, and fresh water hanging on the sides of Eagle’s lodge, he knew what he should do. He watched for his chance to seize them when no one was looking. He stole all of them, and a brand of fire also, and flew out of the longhouse through the smoke hole. As soon as Raven got outside he hung the Sun up in the sky. It made so much light that he was able to fly far out to an island in the middle of the ocean. When the Sun set, he fastened the Moon up in the sky and hung the stars around in different places. By this new light he kept on flying, carrying with him the fresh water and the brand of fire he had stolen.
He flew back over the land. When he had reached the right place, he dropped all the water he had stolen. It fell to the ground and there became the source of all the fresh-water streams and lakes in the world. Then Raven flew on, holding the brand of fire in his bill. The smoke from the fire blew back over his white feathers and made them black. When his bill began to burn, he had to drop the firebrand. It struck rocks and hid itself within them. That is why, if you strike two stones together, sparks of fire will drop out.
Raven’s feathers never became white again after they were blackened by the smoke from the firebrand. That is why Raven is now a black bird.
Hmm. If there was any possible way for me to blame the weirdness of crows on Grey Eagle’s daughter I would–but, alas, it seems like Raven is the hero of this story and the daughter of marginal importance–so why are his descendants all up in my face?
Maybe I need to bring my pellet gun back to Vancouver. Though, I don’t know that your average tree-hugging, nature loving, granola eating, bike-riding, recycling, hippie Vancouverite would approve.
Technically, though, I wonder if it would violate a bylaw…
drt.
