#31 The Ravens of the Tower of London

Meet the guardians of the Tower of London. Ravens have been residents at the London landmark for over 400 years. It’s thought that Charles the second insisted the Ravens be protected after he received a warning of what would happen if they left.

As the legend goes, if the Ravens ever leave, the tower will crumble, and the kingdom will fall. Not an ideal situation for any of us, so, luckily there is one man whose job it is to make sure that just never happens.

You could argue that your job is the most important in the entire country because if the Ravens leave, if the legend is correct, then the whole kingdom Falls, and we all will be no longer.

Yeah, you could say that I have a lot of weight on my shoulders. But you know what, I’m really good at my job. And you ain’t no way that any of these Ravens have gonna leave this place. So we’re pretty safe, to be honest with you.

It was me and Merlina.

And he’s right. In the seven years Chris has been raven master, none of the birds have flown away. Seven ravens live at the tower, each with their own personality and. There is one, in particular, Chris has a close bond with. Merlina. Most Ravens couple up and Merlina is no exception. She’s been having an on-off love affair with Jubilee for some time now.

She started at the beginning of the year to date him. And then they had a little bit of a falling out, a little bit of a lovers’ tiff. And they went in different directions. She went one side of the Tower, he went the other side of the Tower. And recently, in the last three or four months she’s actually started to come in, and now they’re quite an item, actually. So they’re hanging around together most of the day.

I really wanted to meet Merlina but she wasn’t so keen.

And we’re going to see if we can call them down for here to get some food. But I think they’re more attracted to their cells and they are to food, today.

So, we decided to give Merlina some space and continued on with serving breakfast to the Ravens.

We’ve got two of the Ravens in the enclosure, just going to feed them. And then two adolescent boys, multi teenagers, if you like, they’re going to eat a diet of…, well, they have a diet of mice, rats, chicks, quail, so the red meats, and white meats, biscuits soaked in blood as a treat, and sometimes eggs, as well boiled eggs. So, breakfast for you two. Lovely. There. Good. All right. I’ll see you in a moment. Eat. It’s lovely. I’ve had some this morning already.

Earlier this year there was a new addition to the family.

That is little George. So George’s our newest Raven here at the Tower. And, of course, this year we had a breeding program that we had at the Tower of London. We were successful. And we had four Ravens born to the Tower of London. Three of them went to live with a friend of mine in the countryside, and they’re doing very well. Lucky then. But little George. He was born on St. George’s Day, patron saint of England, and so that’s why it’s called George, and he’s staying up there at the tower, and he is now settled in really really well ere. I should say here I’m talking about he, actually, a couple of weeks ago, we found out that George is a she. So I’m gonna say he because it’s George but it’s actually Georgie.

Like. Come on you two, let’s let you out.

Becoming Ravenmaster is no easy job to land. He’s a yeoman warder, also known as a Beefeater. A position which requires 22 years in the military, an exemplary record, and the rank of Warrant Officer or above.

We’ll come back to you.

So, we decided to see whether Merlina was up for saying hello yet.

Oh, there she goes now. She’s coming down this way.

This is Merlina?

Yeah, this is Merlina. So, we go back in and see if we can feed her. Come on. Come on. Come on in you!

She makes us work for it.

She’s making us work for it today, yeah, absolutely.

Chris communicates with the Ravens by talking as he describes it raven-ish.

I will do it for you only once. I’d make that sound and she makes it back to me. They do, ravens do make that sound. It’s a, I call it a knock knocking sound. So…, yeah bit like that. And I would do it to her, she would do it back to me, then I do it again, she’d do it back to me, until one of us gets fed up of doing it, and, we’re like, okay, I know where you are now.

Ravens are highly intelligent and experience emotions just like we do.

I see them be happy, and excited, and angry, and frustrated, and everything that we have as humans. Ravens have the same emotions. I’ve seen in being depressed, and sad, and grieve, and have empathy, and all sorts of emotions that we have.

Our time with Chris was almost up but luckily at the last minute Merlina decided she was ready to come and say hello.

I’ll leave you to play over your boy for today, yeah go and find him, go find him then, off you go then, come on then.

So, thanks to Chris the kingdom doesn’t look like it’ll fall anytime soon.