The Ravenmaster by Christopher Skaife

 

The Ravenmaster is a blokey book. By that I don’t mean that it is written for blokes. I mean that Christopher Skaife writes as if he’s just come up beside you at the bar in the pub, and while you’re waiting to be served, you both start talking about ‘what you do’, and he starts talking about Ravens and the Tower of London and what it’s like to be in charge of seven very individual and idiosyncratic birds. While  you’re having that conversation, waiting for your pint or glass of wine or whatever, he’ll be down-to-earth, funny, self-deprecating and passionate and he’ll never once make you feel like your own job is dull as ditch water, but after you both leave the bar, you’ll probably think ‘wow, someone actually has that job and you know, he just seems like a normal bloke except he lives in a royal palace and looks after birds that supposedly have the fate of their nation in their claws’.

Christopher Skaife is the titular Ravenmaster and since the book is subtitled ‘My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London’, it does exactly what it says on the tin, but it also does so much more. To start with Skaife is an engaging tour guide around the famous landmark, touching on the history, myths, legends, ghosts, ceremonies and of course the tourists. But the heart of his narrative is his calling, not just as a Yeoman Warder, but also as the man in charge of the Tower’s iconic ravens, who according to legend, if they ever leave, the Tower will crumble and tremendous harm with come to the United Kingdom. (On a side note - given the current fiasco with Brexit, I’m wondering if a few of the ravens have already made a break for freedom in order to keep their EU citizenship! And on even more of a side note – if there was a similar raven myth in the White House, I think I can safely say that those birds took flight at the end of 2016...) Anyway, moving swiftly on…

Skaife is a retired Colour Sergeant in the British Army, and tradition says that only members of the military with a spotless record of at least 22 years can become part of the Yeoman Warders of the Tower. His military background is worth mentioning because Skaife continually refers back to his experiences in the army, not as a piece of self-aggrandisement, but because he’s very clear that he sees his military service as almost an apprenticeship for the skills he now needs to be in charge of the health, safety and welfare of the Tower’s adventurous ravens.

What’s also clear is how passionate he is about his charges. Each raven has an individual personality and quirks and while Skaife talks about all of the ravens, the stars of the show are Munin and Merlina and under Skaife’s pen the personalities of these two especially just jump off the page. We learn why Munin is nicknamed The Black Widow and why her adventures found Skaife swinging from a weathervane, 100 feet off the ground. Also what happened when Merlina decided to make a bid for freedom and visit the Greenwich Observatory, how she eluded her warder in order to visit the poppy installation to honour the centenary of the start of World War I,  and how she mourned for her friend Hugine.

But the book isn’t just about the Tower and it’s not just about the exploits of the current ravens. Skaife is fascinated and extremely well read on raven myths around the world. He touches on references to ravens in literature,  geography and astronomy. He’s well read on raven creation myths among First Nations in the Pacific Northwest. (On another side note, I remember seeing Bill Reid’s stunning giant cedar carving The Raven and the First Men at the B.C. Museum of Anthropology at few years back and it blew me away). There are references to ravens in Norse mythology – Odin had two ravens called Munin and Hugin, and he tips his hat to the fact that ravens turn up in the legends and myths of the Romans, Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Celts. Skaife calls all this knowledge Ravenology and if it was an academic subject, he would have a PhD.

Then of course, there’s that pesky legend about what will happen if the ravens ever leave the Tower and Skaife has done a lot of research to try to find the start of that particular piece of tangled thread. It’s fascinating to discover that there is no real mention of this legend until the late nineteenth century, but like all good tour guides Skaife acknowledges that he doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a great story because the presence and the mythology of the ravens has been woven into the warp and weft of the Tower’s history for centuries.

I have one very minor grump about this book. When Skaife touches on the astonishing poppy installation, ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’, he talks about how honoured he was to read Laurence Binyon’s poem of remembrance ‘For the Fallen’. It’s a genuinely moving section in the book, but I want to hit the editor who missed a misspelling/typo in the section of the poem that is quoted. Of all the things to bugger up, that really hurt. Like I say, it’s a minor grump, but context is everything and, in this case, it stood out like a sore thumb.

But my little grumble aside, The Ravenmaster is a super book. Part engaging autobiography, part history lesson, part exploration of folklore, myth and legend, Christopher Skaife ably juggles all three elements and I came away from reading with a great respect for him and his fellow Yeoman Warders and most importantly for these amazing birds, the ravens. (On one final side note, I have a Coast Salish Raven Talking Stick on my desk at home, and reading this book has made me love it even more than I already did, because really when a raven gives you permission to talk, you’d better say something worth hearing.)

If you fancy doing your PhD in Ravenology, or perhaps just learning a little bit of Ravenish, The Ravenmaster is a great place to start. I know it has made me want to read more on the subject now, and what more can you ask from any book.

The Ravenmaster by Christopher Skaife was first published in 2018 and my copy was published by Harper Collins.