LONDON – They slap and suck and scurry and bait. Some say they hold the future of the empire in their fearsome beaks. And now one of them – their queen, Merlina – has been reclassified from AWOL to MIA, ushering in the dreaded redemption of a supposed prophecy dating from the time of King Charles II in the 17th century: When the Crows Leave the Tower of London , the building will crumble and the kingdom with it.
In any case, it is the story so far, a mixture of myth, invention and hard-boiled commercialism that has elevated the crows’ resident colony in London’s famous prison and palace on the north bank of the River Thames to a rare status: clipped wing guardians of national destiny, tourist-dollar magnets.
Most people, including the tower’s scarlet-covered guards, known as Beefeaters, dismiss the prophecy wryly as a fiction invented in Victorian Britain in the 19th century.
But given the other narratives facing the country – Covid-19 at its deadliest since the pandemic began spinning from distant China a year ago; the traumas and tribulations of Brexit; the consequent weakening of the ties uniting the United Kingdom – can it not be said that the prediction is already coming true?
The fluttering concern comes from December, when Christopher Skaife, the tower’s raven master, notes that Merlina is absent from the rest of the group without leave – Jubilee, Harris, Gripp, Rocky, Erin and Poppy. Initially, he said, he was not too worried because she was a “liberal crow who is already very well known for leaving the tower areas.”
“But I’m her friend, and so she’s normally back to us, but this time she’s not, so I’m afraid she’s not with us anymore,” he told the BBC.
The guardians of the Tower of London confirmed his suspicions in a statement on Wednesday. Merlina’s ‘continuous absence indicates to us that she is sadly deceased’, the tower authorities said.
For prophecy viewers, there was a twist. To fulfill the sign, the number of crows must fall below six – the minimum set by royal decree. But, Ravenmaster Skaife kept an extra bird, a familiar concept in a broader prescription for royal continuity, forcing couples to create an ‘heir and an extra’ when expanding the royal family with the creation of ‘ a progeny.
“We now have seven crows here at the tower, one more than the required six, so we have no immediate plans to fill Merlina’s vacancy,” the tower authorities said. Nevertheless, the wandering queen will be ‘greatly missed by her fellow crows, the raven master, and all of us in the towering community’.
The destination of the crows’ destination with the nations would possibly be foreseen in August last year, when the problems related to the coronavirus pandemic robbed the Tower of London of its legion of visitors.
The crows – sometimes called ‘unkindness’ – became bored and restless without affecting the human contact they maintained in snacks, except for a regular diet soaked in mice, chicks, meat and biscuits soaked in animal blood. , include. They have also been said to want to stimulate a human audience for their party tricks that include mimicry.
One of the crows, Thor, who preceded Merlina’s arrival in 2007, allegedly greeted visiting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by wishing him good morning. Mr. Putin is “quite upset”, reports The Guardian.
Mr. Putin would not have been the first person to be surprised – or perhaps seen parallels near Russia’s own history – at the tower, which was known for a history of captivity from the 12th century, often as a prelude to beheading. and other forms of execution. His many doomed alumni included two wives of Henry VIII; the so-called princes in the tower who disappeared there in the 15th century and were allegedly killed by their uncle, King Richard III; and the fleeing Nazi Rudolf Hess in 1941.
On top of that, many of the estimated three million visitors a year (pre-pandemic) not only flocked there to immerse themselves in the bloody history, but also over the heavily guarded crown jewels.
The Tower of London was closed to visitors on December 16 as the latest wave of coronavirus cases became strong. But even before that time, and before Merlina’s disappearance, the impact of declining visitor numbers kept guards like Ravenmaster Skaife worried.
“The tower is only the tower when the people are there,” he told The Sun last year. ‘The crows have always been so important to the tower because they are surrounded by myths and legends. We really need people to come back to help the crows. ”