Symbolism
The raven is the national bird of Bhutan, and it adorns the royal hat, representing the deity Gonpo Jarodonchen (Mahakala with a Raven's head; one of the important guardian deities of Bhutanese culture.) It is the official bird of the Yukon and of the city of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
The raven was a common device used by the Vikings. Ragnar Lodbrok had a raven banner called Reafan, embroidered with the device of a raven. It was said that if this banner fluttered, Lodbrok would carry the day, but if it hung lifeless the battle would be lost. King Harald Hardrada also had a raven banner, called Landeythan (land-waster). The bird also appears in the folklore of the Isle of Man, a former Viking colony, and it is used as a symbol on their coat of arms.
The raven was also used on the coat of arms of Wallachia/Tara Romaneasca, and as the key charge in the coat of arms of Janos Hunyadi signifying probably his Romanian origins. From this usage, it has been used as the title of a herald in the Society for Creative Anachronism's Kingdom of Drachenwald.
As a carrion bird, ravens became associated with the dead and with lost souls. In Sweden they are known as the ghosts of murdered persons.
French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss proposed a structuralist theory that suggests the raven (like the coyote) obtained mythic status because it was a mediator animal between life and death.
Read more about this topic: Cultural Depictions Of Ravens
Famous quotes containing the word symbolism:
“...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me when I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor—they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.”
—Albion Fellows Bacon (1865–1933)