LONDON – They flap their wings, make lollipops, squawk and rummage. They guard the future of the kingdom, some say, in their fearsome beaks. And now one of them – his queen, Merlina – has been reclassified to AWOL’s MIA, announcing the dreaded redemption of a supposed prophecy dating from the time of King Charles II in the 17th century: When crows leave the Tower of London, the building will collapse and the kingdom with her.
That is at least the story so far, a mixture of myth, invention and bold commercialism that has elevated the colony of crows residing in London’s famous prison and palace on the north bank of the River Thames to a rare status: wing cut off guardians of destiny national, dollar-tourist magnets.
Most people, including the scarlet guards in the tower, known as Beefeaters, ironically reject the prophecy as a fiction invented in Victorian Britain in the 19th century.
But, given the other narratives that confront the land – Covid-19 in its most deadly form since the pandemic began to spread from distant China a year ago; the traumas and tribulations of Brexit; the consequent erosion of the bonds that unite the United Kingdom – could it not be said that the omen is already in the process of realization?
The worrying turmoil dates back to December, when Christopher Skaife, the ravenmaster of the tower, realized that Merlina was absent without permission from the rest of the group – Jubilee, Harris, Gripp, Rocky, Erin and Poppy. Initially, he said, he was not overly concerned because she was a “free-spirited crow who, on many occasions, left the tower enclosures”.
“But I’m a friend of hers, and she usually comes back to us, but this time she hasn’t come back, so I’m afraid she is no longer with us,” he told the BBC.
In a statement on Wednesday, Tower of London custodians confirmed their suspicions. “Merlina’s continued absence indicates that she may have sadly passed away,” tower officials said.
For prophecy watchers, there was a twist. To fulfill the omen, the number of crows must drop to less than six – the minimum dictated by royal decree. Shrewdly, the Ravenmaster Skaife kept an extra bird, a familiar concept in a broader recipe for royal continuity that orders couples to create “an heir and a spare” when extending the royal family by raising descendants.
“We now have seven crows here in the tower, one more than the six needed, so we have no immediate plans to fill Merlina’s place,” said the tower authorities. However, the wandering queen “will be sorely missed by her fellow crows, the master of crows and all of us in the tower community.”
The intertwining of crows’ destinations with those of the nation may have been predicted last August, when concerns about the coronavirus pandemic deprived the Tower of London from some of its legions of visitors.
Crows – sometimes collectively called “rude” – were bored and restless without the detritus of human contact that kept them in snacks, in addition to a regular diet that included rats, chicks, meat and biscuits soaked in animal blood. It was also said that they longed for the encouragement of a human audience for their party tricks that include miming.
One of the crows, Thor, before Merlina’s arrival in 2007, would have greeted visiting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, wishing him a good morning. Putin was “quite surprised,” reported The Guardian.
Putin would not be the first person to be caught off guard – or perhaps to have seen parallels close to Russia’s own history – in the tower, known for a history of incarceration dating back to the 12th century, often as a prelude to beheading and other forms of execution. His many convicted alumni included two wives of Henry VIII; the so-called princes of the tower, who disappeared there in the 15th century and who were allegedly murdered by their uncle, King Richard III; and the Nazi fugitive Rudolf Hess in 1941.
In addition, many of the estimated three million annual visitors (pre-pandemic) gathered there not only to immerse themselves in the bloody history, but also to marvel at the closely guarded crown jewels.
The Tower of London was closed to visitors on December 16, while the latest wave of coronavirus cases was gaining momentum. But even before that, and before Merlina’s disappearance, the impact of the drop in visitor numbers worried guardians like Raven Master Skaife.
“The tower is just the Tower when people are there,” he told The Sun newspaper last year. “Crows have always been so important to the tower because they have been surrounded by myths and legends. We really need people to come back to help the crows. “