(he had ravens incorporated into his family crest) and must have known the Welsh legends of the Mabinogion . One tells of the hero-giant Bran being fatally wounded in battle and having his head removed and taken to Gwynfryn, a white hill in London with his head placed looking toward France so he could always keep Britain safe. Many think the white hill is the hill the White Tower is built on. Then myth-makers will nod as they tell you the word Bran, in Welsh, means ‘crow’, which is almost like a raven.
The ritual of the raven numbers is embedded now, whatever its origin. Interviewed for the Fortean Times issue 206, Yeoman Ravenmaster Derek Coyle repeated the Charles II legend and that there must always be six ravens at the Tower by Charles’ decree. It may be possible that wandering through early twentieth-century London, Soseki misheard the number as five instead of six. While Coyle does not mention the legend directly, he does say that he keeps twelve birds at other locations to be sent for if numbers at the Tower drop too low. The cynical suspect that the story of the ravens was an extra fable created for tourists that Londoners took to their hearts too. The truth is that there were no ravens in the Tower of London by the end of the Second World War, as some ravens had died in bombing raids and others had pined away or died of shock. By the time the Tower was reopened in 1946, a new set had been found. Their wings are clipped to stop them leaving, not because the Tower may fall if they do, but because it is very difficult to stop ravens from flying away.
The Lions in the Tower
The ravens in the Tower urban legends may have been inspired by the London Stone story, but also by an earlier animal fable of the Tower. London Zoo started life as the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London, with the lions being the most popular. John Ashton, writing in his 1883 Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne , reports that seeing the lions at the Tower was the first thing all those new to London did, and that when three of the four lions died in 1903, it was thought to be a ‘dire portent’. The lives of the lions of the Tower were inextricably linked to the lives of the sovereign. In 1603, when one of the lions died just before the death of Queen Elizabeth I, it was seen as portentous. Joseph Addison went to the Tower just after the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1715, with a friend sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. The plan was to install James II’s son on the throne. The friend asked if any of the lions had fallen ill after the would-be king was defeated at Perth and fled, and was told the lions were in the best of health. Addison wrote: ‘I found he was extremely startled, for he had learned from his cradle that the Lions in the Tower were the best judges of the title of our British Kings, and always sympathise with our sovereigns.’
In earlier, less certain centuries, the fate of the nation and its people depended far more greatly on the monarch than now. It may be possible to think that the link between the lions’ lives to that of the king transferred itself, once the lions left in 1835, to concerns about the nation connected to the ravens.
Once the lions had moved out of the Tower, they still managed to be an attraction there. Once a year, tickets would go out to people inviting them to the Tower to witness the washing of the lions. The invites were sent out in error in 1860, long after the lions had left the Tower, and the day of the ‘annual ceremony’ became 1 April. The meeting place was the fictional ‘White Gate’ to the Tower, and The Chambers Book of Days reported that on the day, cabs ‘rattled about Tower Hill all that Sunday morning, vainly endeavouring to discover the White Gate’.
7
LEGENDARY LANDMARKS
----
London is a wide place and a long, but rumour
has a wider scope and a longer tongue.
J. Fisher Murray, Physiology of London Life
----
W ILLIAM KENT, IN his 1951 book Walks in London ,
The ritual of the raven numbers is embedded now, whatever its origin. Interviewed for the Fortean Times issue 206, Yeoman Ravenmaster Derek Coyle repeated the Charles II legend and that there must always be six ravens at the Tower by Charles’ decree. It may be possible that wandering through early twentieth-century London, Soseki misheard the number as five instead of six. While Coyle does not mention the legend directly, he does say that he keeps twelve birds at other locations to be sent for if numbers at the Tower drop too low. The cynical suspect that the story of the ravens was an extra fable created for tourists that Londoners took to their hearts too. The truth is that there were no ravens in the Tower of London by the end of the Second World War, as some ravens had died in bombing raids and others had pined away or died of shock. By the time the Tower was reopened in 1946, a new set had been found. Their wings are clipped to stop them leaving, not because the Tower may fall if they do, but because it is very difficult to stop ravens from flying away.
The Lions in the Tower
The ravens in the Tower urban legends may have been inspired by the London Stone story, but also by an earlier animal fable of the Tower. London Zoo started life as the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London, with the lions being the most popular. John Ashton, writing in his 1883 Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne , reports that seeing the lions at the Tower was the first thing all those new to London did, and that when three of the four lions died in 1903, it was thought to be a ‘dire portent’. The lives of the lions of the Tower were inextricably linked to the lives of the sovereign. In 1603, when one of the lions died just before the death of Queen Elizabeth I, it was seen as portentous. Joseph Addison went to the Tower just after the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1715, with a friend sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. The plan was to install James II’s son on the throne. The friend asked if any of the lions had fallen ill after the would-be king was defeated at Perth and fled, and was told the lions were in the best of health. Addison wrote: ‘I found he was extremely startled, for he had learned from his cradle that the Lions in the Tower were the best judges of the title of our British Kings, and always sympathise with our sovereigns.’
In earlier, less certain centuries, the fate of the nation and its people depended far more greatly on the monarch than now. It may be possible to think that the link between the lions’ lives to that of the king transferred itself, once the lions left in 1835, to concerns about the nation connected to the ravens.
Once the lions had moved out of the Tower, they still managed to be an attraction there. Once a year, tickets would go out to people inviting them to the Tower to witness the washing of the lions. The invites were sent out in error in 1860, long after the lions had left the Tower, and the day of the ‘annual ceremony’ became 1 April. The meeting place was the fictional ‘White Gate’ to the Tower, and The Chambers Book of Days reported that on the day, cabs ‘rattled about Tower Hill all that Sunday morning, vainly endeavouring to discover the White Gate’.
7
LEGENDARY LANDMARKS
----
London is a wide place and a long, but rumour
has a wider scope and a longer tongue.
J. Fisher Murray, Physiology of London Life
----
W ILLIAM KENT, IN his 1951 book Walks in London ,
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