i 5 8 BIRDS IN^LEGEND 



When a raven alights on a dead animal its first act is 

 to pluck out the eyes. One of the barbarities in the an- 

 cient East was to throw the bodies of executed criminals 

 out to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey — a custom 

 of which the Parsee Towers of Silence is a modified relic. 

 The popular knowledge of this gave great force to 

 Solomon's warning {Proverbs xxx, 17) : "The eye that 

 mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, 

 the ravens of the valley shall pick it out" — that is, so bad 

 a boy would end on the gallows. 



Although ravens were regarded by the ancient 

 Zoroastrians as "pure," because they were considered 

 necessary to remove pollution from the face of the earth, 

 the Jews classed this creature as "unclean" for the same 

 reason — it ate carrion. In view of this the Biblical 

 legend that the Prophet Elijah, when he hid by the brook 

 Kerith from the wrath of Ahab, was fed by ravens at 

 command of the Lord, is so unnatural that commentators 

 have done their best to explain it away. To this day the 

 Moors regard ravens as belonging to Satan. In Chapter 

 V of the Koran, where the killing of Cain by his brother 

 is described, we read: "And God sent a raven which 

 scratched the earth to show him how he should hide the 

 shame [that is, the corpse] of his brother, and he said 

 Woe is me! am I to be like this raven?* . . . and he 

 became one of those who repent." This is from Sale's 

 edition, Philadelphia, 1868; and the editor adds a note 

 that this legend was derived from the Jews, but that in 

 their version the raven appears not to Cain but to Adam, 

 who thereupon buried Abel. 



That a bird black as night and its mysteries, a familiar 

 of the lightning-riven pine and the storm-beaten crag, 



