Tower of London: Raven Mad

England's most famous ravens are those that live at the Tower of London. Legend has it that if the six resident birds left the Tower then the kingdom would crumble and fall into the waves. It seems King Charles II decided to take chance out of the equation by protecting the Tower's ravens and encouraged them to stay. The story goes that the royal astronomer, John Flamstead, was less that thrilled by the monarch's decision, complaining that the birds got in the way of his observations in the White Tower.

In the modern day seven ravens (one birds is a spare!) are looked after the Ravenmaster. Their wings are clipped so they cannot fly away but despite this, occaisionally one goes AWOL or is sacked. A raven called Grog diseappeared, last seen outside an East End pub, whilst another called George was dismissed for chewing television aerials.

Odin, with Huginn and Muninn on his shoulders.

But ravens have been associated with mythology and legend for at least a millennia before the first stone of the Tower of London was laid down. In Norse Mythology, a pair of ravens, Huginn and Muninn, were the familiars of the Norse god, Odin. It was their job to fly out at dawn, collecting gossip from around the world and return to their master at dusk. A poem compiled in the 13th century, from earlier sources, tells of Odin's affection for the birds:

Huginn and Muninn fly each day

over the spacious earth.

I fear for Huginn, that he come not back,

yet more anxious am I for Muninn

Another image of Odin, with Huginn and Muninn

In England, medieval folk lore linked the appearance of a raven to predicting an impending death. It was said that a bird perched on a house of a sick person was sure sign they would not recover. It's possible this reputation came about because ravens eat carrion and therefore have a reputation for sniffing out death - an impression heightened when farmers report having seen ravens hovering near injured sheep, waiting for them to die so they can feast.

One of the ravens currently resident at the Tower
March 2013

Perhaps it is their sinister cawing, or the jet black nature of their plumage, but from Virgil writing in 40BC, to Pliny the Elder in AD 77, and indeed William Shakespeare in the early 17th century (Macbeth) - ravens are regarded as prophetic or agents of death.

"The raven himselfe is hourse

That croaks the fatall entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements."

But if you think yourself immune to such superstition, who has not heard this rhyme about magpies ?(a member of the corvid family and a relative of the raven):

 

One for sorrow,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl

And four for a boy."

An Australian magpie pursuing a cyclist.

It seems the magpie is beleaguered so because, according to Christian folklore, the magpie was the only bird to remain silent and not sing to comfort Jesus at his crucifixion. Perhaps even more sinister is Scottish ore that holds a magpie keeps a drop of the devil's blood beneath his tongue!

So if you meet that most portentous of sights, a lone magpie, how can you diffuse it's evil influence?  Simple! You talk to him, saying:

"Morning, Mr Magpie, and how is your wife?"

Hence invoking the presence of a second bird and converting sorrow to joy!

 

 

Tower of London: Polar Bears in the Thames

In this the third post about animals at the Tower of London, we look at bears - or polar bears to be precise.

One of the sculptures (made from chicken wire) at the Tower of London

In 1252 King Henry III (1207 - 72) was given a Norwegian bear by King Hakon V. This bear was described as "pale" , which is significant because the black bear (albeit sometimes light coloured) was common in England at the time. It seems likely that this bear was significantly different in order to merit it being a gift, and was probably a polar bear.

The bear arrived with a keeper, and once again the Sheriffs of the City of London were asked [told] to pay for the animals upkeep. The Sheriffs allotted around tuppence a day, which considering the prevalent poverty of the day, must have seemed galling to some. However, after a year, the sheriffs decided it was time the bear caught it's own food in the Thames; at that time the Thames was a clean river, rich with salmon and fish.

"fat and sweet salmon [are] dailie taken."

 

The White Tower at the Tower of London

The bear was fitted with a chain and muzzle, and the keeper expected to take the beast down to the river to fish and bathe. The sheriffs thoughtfully provided the keeper with a thick cape, presumably to keep out the cold on the riverbank.

"Greetings. We [the King] command you that for the keeper of our white bear , recently arrived from Norway… ye cause to be had one muzzle and one iron chain to hold the bear without the water, one long strong cord, to hold the same bear fishing or washing himself in the Thames."

The Tower of London with Tower Bridge (over the Thames)
in the background.

King Edward I (Henry III's son) took an interest in his father's menagerie. He employed 4 keepers, each paid 3d each a day, plus a 10d allowance towards animal food. Some thirty years after the original bear, records exist of payment for a white bear called Lynn (she originated from a place of the same name) being transported by boat (presumably up the Thames) to the Tower.

A few centuries later, it seems curiosity was superseded by cruelty. King James I of England (1603-25) made the bears, lions and dogs fight each other. To this end he had a platform built from which he could watch the so-called 'sport'. This was a vicious activity where the bears were often chained and toothless, and had massive mastiff dogs set on them. The 'sport' was in betting on which animal would inflict the most damage.

 

And finally, did you know that most polar bears are Capricorns - since the majority are born between late December and mid January.

The Tower of London: of Elephants and Wine

“We believe that this was the only elephant ever seen in England.”

Matthew Paris

Look closely - can you see the sculpture is made from chicken wire?

This blog post was inspired by the wonderful elephant sculpture on display at the Tower of London. I wanted to find out about elephant keeping at the Tower, which it transpires was well-intentioned but misinformed. Read on…

A Jumbo-sized Gift

The first elephant at the Tower was a gift from King Louis IX to King Henry III. The animal was a trophy from the crusades in Palestine, but it's quite possible the present was a major headache for Henry. A mandate records, 7 January 1239, orders for the Sheriff of Kent to arrange transport (presumably at his own expense) for the beast.

"…to provide bringing the King's elephant from Whistsand to Dover, and if possible to London by water."

Henry III's tomb

Housing the Beast

Henry's menagerie at the Tower was started in 1235 with the gift of three leopards as a wedding present from Frederick III, the Holy Roman Emperor. One can only imagine what an awe-inspiring sight his collection must have been, but it seems Henry didn't expect to shoulder the cost himself, but deferred this to the Sheriff of London.

“We command you,” Henry wrote to the Sheriff of London, “that ye cause without delay, to be built at our Tower of London, one house of forty feet long and twenty feet deep, for our elephant.”

Interestingly, the wooden elephant house at 20 by 40 foot was roughly the same dimensions as the recently decommissioned elephant house at London Zoo - only the later housed three, rather than one, elephant!

Whilst the kudos of the animals was appreciated by royalty, the expense was not. When James I was gifted an elephant in 1623, from Spain, someone pithily records:

'the Lord Treasurer will be little in love with presents which cost the King as much to maintain as a garrison'

Ancient and modern: The Tower with the Shard in the background
Author's own photograph.

A Great Draw

In the 13th century few people had ever seen an elephant. Drawings of them were created from descriptions, rather than life, and so ended up looking like horses with long noses. When the elephant arrived at the Tower, such was the draw, that the monk and historian, Matthew Paris, travelled specifically from the abbey at St Albans to study and drawn the animal.

Matthew's drawing is one of the first naturalistic pictures of an elephant. He depicted it with the keeper, Henricus de Flor, in order to show the scale, and described it has having:

"Small eyes on top of his head, and eats and drinks with a trunk."

One of the first naturalistic pictures of an elephant -
By Matthew Paris of Henry III's elephant and his keeper.

 Keeping Out the Cold

Sadly, for many centuries no one bothered to find out what care the elephants needed to stay healthy. This was typified by James I's elephant, which came with instructions to give it only wine to drink in the winter months, to 'keep out the cold'. The poor animal drank over a gallon of red wine a day, without anyone stopping to query how an elephant would acquire wine in the wild. This elephant didn't live long, but worse still, no lessons were learnt and for another couple of centuries the myth remained and Tower elephants were given wine to drink.

And finally

When Henry III's original elephant died, its grave was near the chapel on Tower Green, close to where Anne Boleyn was later to be buried. However, the bones were later dug up and it is said that 13th century bone and ivory caskets that house reliquaries, (kept at the Victoria and Albert museum) are made from the remains of that elephant.

 

The Tower of London: Lion Superstitions

One of the magnificent lion sculptures at the Tower of London.
Author's own photograph.

In the moat near the entrance to the Tower of London stand three fantastical lion sculptures.
Improbably made out of chicken-mesh, they are breathtakingly life-like and expressive, the sculptor having achieved the impossible by recreating fur from wire! But why sculptures of lions? Well, history of lions in central London is almost as old as the tower itself, and wrapt in superstition.

The approach to the Tower of London.
Author's own photogrpahs.

The Tower's association with wildcats begins in 1235 when Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor was betrothed to the sister of King Henry III of England. To honour his new brother-in-law and in reference to the king's royal standard, Frederick gave Henry a gift of three leopards. (Actually, there is strong historical evidence that they were actually lions, and that 'leopard' was a mistranslation.) This link to lions on the royal flag goes back to Henry's uncle, Richard the Lionheart, who had three lions passant on his crest (as perpetuated by the English football team!)

 

Entrance to the Tower of London -
near the site of the original Lion Tower (now demolished)
Note the lion in the crest.

"My friend, who had a great deal of talk with their [lions] keeper, asked after the health of the beasts and whether none of them had fallen sick ….at the flight of the Pretender.…For he had learnt in his cradle that the lions in the Tower were the best judges of the title of our British kings, and always sympathised with [the welfare of] our sovereigns."

Addison, 1715

Tradition to name a lion after the reigning monarch; there have been a Henry, Philip, Mary and an Elizabeth. Superstition had it the health of monarch and lion were linked. Indeed, the lioness Elizabeth did pass away just a few days before the aged monarch died - somewhat to relief of those that believed in the myth.

 

Again, in 1758, when King George II was sick with a painful attack of gout, the politician Lord Chesterfield wrote:

"It was generally thought that HM [His Majesty] would have died and for good reason, for the oldest lion in the Tower - much about the King's age - died a fortnight ago. This extravagancy was believed by the common people."

An exception to this rule was lion named, Edward VI, who outlived his namesake by almost half a century. One possible explanation went that the Edward lion was replaced several times - although why anyone should bother to do this is a mystery! Indeed, the other side of the coin was that rumour reported that if a monarch's lion died unexpectedly, the death was hushed up and the beast hastily replaced by another of the same name.

 

There were other, more mischievous, superstitions linked to the Tower's lions. For instance in the 17th century it was held that they had the potentially embarrassing talent of being able to identify if a woman was a virgin or not. Not mention is made of how they did this!

Also, it was aid the Tower lions were particularly attuned to the weather around Candlemass (February 2nd) day.

"If Candlemass Day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another flight."

So if February 2nd was a bright sunny day, the lions were said to lounge around in a state of depression at the prospect of an even longer winter.

And finally, the spring of 1698 saw the birth of a new tradition. Rumours spread that on April 1st the keepers bathed the lions in the Tower's moat. Gilt-edged invitations to view the spectacle were issued to a favoured few, and when the visitors arrived on the appointed day - you guessed it - they were told it was an April Fools joke and the keepers had no intention of doing such a dangerous thing. The prank was such a good one that in future years, advertisements for the lion-washing were posted in newspapers - with the result that flocks of gullible tourists arrived at the Tower on April 1st!