162 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



Lauffer 52 treats of this point with his customary 

 thoroughness in his pamphlet Bird Divination: 



Indian Hindoo navigators kept birds on board ship for the 

 purpose of despatching them in search of land. In the Baveru- 

 Jataka it is "a crow serving to direct navigators in the four 

 quarters" . . . Pliny relates that the seafarers of Taprobane 

 (Ceylon) did not observe the stars for the purpose of naviga- 

 tion, but carried birds out to sea, which they sent off from time 

 to time and then followed the course of the birds' flying in the 

 direction of the land. The connection of this practice with 

 that described in the Babylonian and Hebraic traditions of the del- 

 uge was long ago recognized. . . . When the people of Thera, an 

 island in the iEgean Sea emigrated to Libya, ravens flew along 

 with them ahead of the ships to show the way. According to 

 Justin ... it was by the flight of birds that the Gauls who 

 invaded Illyricum were guided. Emperor Jimmu of Japan 

 (7th century) engaged in a war expedition and marched under 

 the guidance of a gold-colored raven. 



Mr. Lauffer might have added that Callisthenes relates that 

 two heaven-sent ravens led the expedition of Alexander across 

 the trackless desert from the Mediterranean coast to the oasis 

 of Ammon (Siwah), recalling stragglers now and then by 

 hoarse croaking. 



The folklore of northern Europe is full of the cunning 

 and exploits of this bird and its congeners, which it would 

 be a weary task to disentangle from pure myth. In 

 Germany there is, or was, a stone gibbet called, with 

 gruesome memories, Ravenstone, to which Byron alludes 

 in Werner — 



Do you think 

 I'll honor you so much as save your throat 

 From the Ravenstone by choking myself? 



We read that the old Welsh king Owein, son of Urien, 

 had in his army three hundred doughty ravens, consti- 

 tuting an irresistible force; perhaps they were only human 



