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luanam 's review for:
The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London
by Christopher Skaife
3.5 Rating
Ravens, they are as intelligent as parrots and with a certain mystique that comes from their folklorish association with trickster gods or with the afterlife and death. They are playful, headstrong, occasionally stroppy lil critters, with a fine sense of pecking order and a very particular sense of where their, and others, place lies in it. They are personality plus, with great ability to give and hold both affection and grudges and Skaife was the Yeoman Ravenmaster who got to experience and negotiate the full range of these as displayed by the famed ravens of the Tower of London to each other and occasionally to the humans whom they shared territory with. The result is an assembly of raven stories that range form amusing (especially so when they are at their most tactically clever and bloody minded), to sweet, to sad (the tale of how Skaife came to the decision not to clip the flight feathers so severely is one such).
Skaife also does not limit his writing to the Tower of London ravens, he explores the lore of ravens over history, countries and cultures (though he does miss out the Morrigan from his recounting of raven associated mythical beings). The result is a treasury of tales and information ranging from myths, to the intersection of ravens and literature, such as the possible influence Dicken's pet raven may have had, to natural history knowledge. Among this all was some surprising elements, for instance, that the story, that should the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, England will fall, is a relatively recent innovation rather than dating back to the 17th/16th century. Skaife writes:
"In all my research over the years in Raven HQ... in all the years I've been looking and searching, and with all the experts I've consulted, I have been able to find no mention of the ravens at the Tower of London before the late nineteenth century. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a croak. Nothing about Charles II and his decree. Nothing about Flamsteed and his confounded ravens. Nothing about the kingdom falling if the ravens should ever leave the Tower."
Despite all this coverage of ravens, the book itself was less of an ornithology tract and more of a combination of a biography, history book and raven text. And this made sense once you consider the author's background. It turns out that to be a yeoman working at the Tower of London and thus later a Ravenmaster, the candidate must have 22 years of good conduct military service behind them. The result is that Skaife signed up for the Tower with a love of history and an interest in wildlife but no particular experience with Ravens and in this book this you can see this in his passion for the history of the Tower and other aspects of military and general history which he recounts throughout (including his own personal history).
Another book that I reviewed recently, Bird Cottage, is similar in this. It too turned out to be less concentrated on the ornithological aspects than I expected and desired. However, I ended up rating it a bit higher than I have for the Ravenmaster (even though the history parts of the Ravenmaster are interesting) and this was because the writing for Bird Cottage was just that degree better. The writing for Ravenmaster is good, and occasionally hits beautiful points but some of it is just pleasing and I think the difference is that Bird Cottage was written by a professional author. Having said that though, there is no denying that Skaife has a very appealing, warm and fun voice and it can be followed on his Twitter feed at Ravenmaster (link below):
https://twitter.com/search?q=ravenmaster&src=typd&lang=en
He also was fantastic at splicing in recommendations for experts in the field of bird studies and one I will have to look into is: Nathan J. Emery of Bird Brain
Ravens, they are as intelligent as parrots and with a certain mystique that comes from their folklorish association with trickster gods or with the afterlife and death. They are playful, headstrong, occasionally stroppy lil critters, with a fine sense of pecking order and a very particular sense of where their, and others, place lies in it. They are personality plus, with great ability to give and hold both affection and grudges and Skaife was the Yeoman Ravenmaster who got to experience and negotiate the full range of these as displayed by the famed ravens of the Tower of London to each other and occasionally to the humans whom they shared territory with. The result is an assembly of raven stories that range form amusing (especially so when they are at their most tactically clever and bloody minded), to sweet, to sad (the tale of how Skaife came to the decision not to clip the flight feathers so severely is one such).
Skaife also does not limit his writing to the Tower of London ravens, he explores the lore of ravens over history, countries and cultures (though he does miss out the Morrigan from his recounting of raven associated mythical beings). The result is a treasury of tales and information ranging from myths, to the intersection of ravens and literature, such as the possible influence Dicken's pet raven may have had, to natural history knowledge. Among this all was some surprising elements, for instance, that the story, that should the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, England will fall, is a relatively recent innovation rather than dating back to the 17th/16th century. Skaife writes:
"In all my research over the years in Raven HQ... in all the years I've been looking and searching, and with all the experts I've consulted, I have been able to find no mention of the ravens at the Tower of London before the late nineteenth century. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a croak. Nothing about Charles II and his decree. Nothing about Flamsteed and his confounded ravens. Nothing about the kingdom falling if the ravens should ever leave the Tower."
Despite all this coverage of ravens, the book itself was less of an ornithology tract and more of a combination of a biography, history book and raven text. And this made sense once you consider the author's background. It turns out that to be a yeoman working at the Tower of London and thus later a Ravenmaster, the candidate must have 22 years of good conduct military service behind them. The result is that Skaife signed up for the Tower with a love of history and an interest in wildlife but no particular experience with Ravens and in this book this you can see this in his passion for the history of the Tower and other aspects of military and general history which he recounts throughout (including his own personal history).
Another book that I reviewed recently, Bird Cottage, is similar in this. It too turned out to be less concentrated on the ornithological aspects than I expected and desired. However, I ended up rating it a bit higher than I have for the Ravenmaster (even though the history parts of the Ravenmaster are interesting) and this was because the writing for Bird Cottage was just that degree better. The writing for Ravenmaster is good, and occasionally hits beautiful points but some of it is just pleasing and I think the difference is that Bird Cottage was written by a professional author. Having said that though, there is no denying that Skaife has a very appealing, warm and fun voice and it can be followed on his Twitter feed at Ravenmaster (link below):
https://twitter.com/search?q=ravenmaster&src=typd&lang=en
He also was fantastic at splicing in recommendations for experts in the field of bird studies and one I will have to look into is: Nathan J. Emery of Bird Brain