112 THE RAVEN IN POETRY AND FOLK-LORE 



in the forest swamps and wild moorlands are the 

 ghosts of murdered persons, whose bodies have been 

 concealed there by their undetected murderers, and 

 have not received Christian burial. In Denmark, 

 the appearance of a raven in a village is supposed 

 to portend the death of the village priest ; while in 

 Languedoc, it is the belief that a wicked priest is 

 himself changed, after death, into a raven, and a 

 wicked nun into a crow. In some parts of Germany, 

 witches, it is believed, ride astride upon a raven ; and 

 the Evil One himself, at times, assumes the raven 

 shape ; while in the Tyrol, and other parts of 

 Central Europe, there is a widespread belief in 

 the famous " raven-stone," a stone which the raven 

 procures somehow from the sea, and which, like" 

 the "eagle-stone" of the eagle, and the " spring- 

 wort " of the woodpecker, is supposed to have 

 talismanic powers, especially the power possessed 

 by the ring of Gyges in antiquity, of rendering 

 any one, who has the good luck to acquire it, invis- 

 ible. The raven brings the mysterious stone to her 

 nest, when one of her young has been killed and 

 left within it by the crafty marauder, apparently 

 hoping that, when it is placed within its throat, it 

 will bring back her dead offspring to life. Back 

 comes the robber, climbs the rock or tree, and 



