Paint it Black Part One

The wonderful part of writing is all the learning… 

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I do a fair amount of research when I am developing a character for my stories. I recently had a discussion about the naming of characters with a group about my own process. Even just the simple method of determining the best name for a character is a rigorous endeavour. The way in which I choose a name for a character begins with examining the beings' origins and the meaning of the prospective name to correlate with the ideas I am trying to convey with each specific story. 

This past month has been a flurry of activity as I returned to work after the delay of the starting school year, and so, I have not had the chance to post as I would have liked to this month. That said, I write a monthly piece for a group and given the upcoming month’s end I will share it with you here as well, as it pertains very much to the goals I have in my writing whether it is academic or creative nonfiction. I will begin with the winged beautiful creatures…

Corvids have been a fascinating creature for me for several years. I always held a deep curiosity for them, their behaviour and an awareness of their complexity. Jet is one of the characters that has been the most difficult to develop in that respect, as I have been overwhelmed with all that I want to say about his species through the tapestry of the narrative that I weave for William’s journey. This month I explored the myths that we as humans hold about a variety of black animals for the project I mentioned above. My own deeper connection with corvids was not from the stories I mentioned that shaped my beliefs and bonds with other than human nature, but rather began when I met a delightfully learned professor at one of the first conferences at which I was a presenter. My own enthrallment with corvids was further cemented after having reviewed Esther Woolfson’s Corvids: A life with Birds.

And so, without further ado, I share with you the origins of some of our prejudices toward two black winged creatures.

I will begin with on of the most common mascots for the season which is also a witch's familiar, the bat. The most notable correlation with prejudice would be with the vampire species of bats. Interestingly, of the over 1000 species of bats, only three fall into the category of vampire bats, the rest are vegetarians… Additionally, due to the similarity of bats to rats; despite the fact that they are more closely related to humans and that they spend an enormous amount of time grooming, they have been associated with the spread of disease in the Middle Ages and currently today with the spread of Ebola. There was a strong belief in witchcraft at the time of the Middle-Age and bats also became to be associated as the messengers between witches and the devil in rural parts of England and Scotland. Stoker’s Dracula is a brilliantly constructed narrative further perpetuating the myth of the interspecies shape-shifting and links with ominous characters of ill-doing. The inspiration for the story was said to have been from an article that retold the story of a victim drained of their blood by a vampire bat. The bat, much like corvids is also a symbol of the trickster in Indigenous cultures and hence will appear in various cautionary tales. While Western cultures hold a sinister view of this animal the flip side is the Eastern beliefs about bats as symbols of happiness and longevity. Furthermore, if one is to witness a grouping of five bats it is seen as a blessing of a virtuous life filled with prosperity, longevity, health and ending in a natural death (Wigington, 2014).

The other winged black species are corvids and the connections with death. The complexity or ambivalence of the relationship that crows have with death will vary as it traverses cultures. The link with death and corvids most likely originates from their diet of carrion from being seen eating human remains. There are equally some interesting connections with corvids and lore; such as a crow upon the roof of a home with a red thread in its beak is a signal that the building is about to take up in flames. Much like bats, corvids equally have less sinister affiliations, such as the romantic correlation of sighting a crow and the wish fulfillment of one’s heart. But, like many of the superstitions and stories of lore, there are caveats to the rule such as the time of day and direction of flight when the crow is sight. But with crows and ravens, even the linguistic monikers to describe a group of these birds has a negative descriptor (murder of crows and for ravens, an unkindness). Yet, the myth and lore that follow corvids are not all about doom and gloom, many Indigenous cultures associate crows with wisdom or as a trickster. Odin (a Norse god) was accompanied by crows that observed the world and who were the embodiment of thought and memory. 

In closing, the comparison between humans and crows is best expressed by the American writer Henry Ward Beecher with “If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows” (Beecher, p.176).

Beecher, H. W.  Tulatin River Watershed. Retrieved September 28, 2014 from: http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/externalaffairs/outreach/Documents/WildRead/Crows.pdf

Wigington, P. Bat Magic and Folklore. Retireved September 28, 2014 from: http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/samhainmagic/p/Bat-Magic-And-Folklore.htm

Please come back on the 31rst to learn more about beautiful black creatures that walk, jump and crawl…