RAVEN. 713 



" No instance that I am aware of has occurred in this country 

 of the White or Piebald Raven, although it is perhaps as com- 

 mon in the Foero Islands as the Black, and where it is said 

 both kinds are sometimes found in the same nest, the parent 

 birds being indifferently of either colour. This latter point 

 however requires stricter inquiry. Those islands are 180 miles 

 from here ; but this is no great journey for such a bird as the 

 Raven to perform. From this we may conjecture that the 

 species is indisposed to migration to any distance, at least 

 across the waters ; or we may suppose that this Piebald Raven 

 is a very distinct and permanent variety. The Foeroese often 

 teach the Raven to speak, and they prefer for this purpose the 

 Piebald. Previous to instruction they cut, I believe, the 

 frenum linguae, and then they initiate him into all the classical 

 mysteries of old Norse. 



" A curious fact in the history of the Raven is the use to 

 which he was applied by the ancient and intrepid Scandina- 

 vian mariners. To them he was as the magnet to the mo- 

 derns ; he was the great precursor in their adventures of nauti- 

 cal discovery and national agitation. When uncertain of their 

 course, out of sight of land, yet imagining it to be near, a 

 Raven was let loose. If he left the vessel, the course he took 

 was steered, experience seeming to have taught them that land 

 was near, and in the direction of his flight . If he returned to 

 the ship, it was supposed to be at a distance. In this way, the 

 Icelandic Sagas, so remarkable for the air of minuteness and 

 truth of their narratives, inform us was Iceland originally dis- 

 covered. What led these bold and resistless Vickinge to select 

 the Raven for their nautical pioneer I History points to Asia 

 Minor as the origin of Odin and his people, and the tradition 

 there of the use of the Raven in the Deluge may have led to 

 his employment by them in their first attempts at navigation. 

 In possession of such a tradition, as mostly all the inhabitants 

 not utterly uncivilized of that part of the globe might be sup- 

 posed to be, and in the natural ignorance of an inland tribe of 

 maritime affairs, it was not unlikely that in their first attempts 

 on the ocean, they would have recourse to the terrene instinct 

 of the Raven, when nothing but the pathless sea was around. 



