Have you ever heard of a Christmas Crow? Well, if you haven’t, don’t worry. You’re not alone. In fact, I had never heard of a Christmas Crow until I started researching superstitions for this series. However, there is in fact an interesting superstition (if you can call it that) related to crows and gifts, and if you would like to know more about this superstition and some of the other superstitions surrounding these black-feathered creatures, all you have to do is keep reading.
6. Crows and Gifts: Some people believe that if you feed a crow and treat it kindly, the crow will actually reward you by bringing you small gifts (especially around Christmastime.)
Origin: It’s not completely clear when the association with crows and gifts first appeared, but it is most likely a modern development. In fact, while some ancient cultures believed that crows were divine messengers, most cultures did not view crows in a very favorable light (see the other two superstitions in this post for more on the reputation of crows.) However, there were some cultures, including the Ancient Greeks, which believed that crows and ravens could actually bring good luck, and this belief may have served as a foundation for the “Christmas Crow”.
The belief that crows will actually reward you for being kind to them is probably a more recent development though because there is no clear reference to crows giving gifts before the late 1900’s, and the association between crows and gifts appears to have really taken hold within the last 5 to 10 years. Yet, the strangest thing about this superstition and the thing that really has given it a life of its own did not occur until this year because the truly bizarre thing about this “superstition” is that it may actually be true. Research has indicated that the American Crow is an extremely intelligent animal that has a fascination with shiny objects and the ability to distinguish different humans from one another based on their facial features. As a result, it wouldn’t be a problem in the least for a crow to pick up some shiny objects and bring them to a human that had been kind to the crow in the past. In fact, it has actually happened.
You see, an 8-year old girl in Seattle, who used to regularly drop her food on the ground outside by accident (like most young children) acquired quite the fan club. A group of crows that really liked all of the food that she dropped began to wait around her house for her to come home so that they could eat any food that she spilled. Eventually, the young girl, enjoying the attention from her newfound friends, began to deliberately feed the crows on a daily basis, and the crows became so attached to the young girl that they would leave a shiny bead, an earring, a piece of metal, a polished rock, or another similar trinket each time they took the food that the girl left. The most amazing thing, however, is that the crows actually recovered a camera lens cap that the young girl’s mother lost in an alley across town, washed the lens cap in the bird fountain, and left it for the young girl and her mother to find.
7. Crows and Bad Luck: A single crow is considered to be bad luck (especially near a church), but more than three crows is considered to be an extremely bad omen. In fact, some believe that the closer the crows are to your home, the more likely it is that someone near you is about to die.
Origin: Crows have been considered to be the harbingers of war, death and darkness since ancient times. In fact, the Celts, Danes, Greeks, Romans, Swedes, and just about everyone else thought that these black birds were bad luck and a sign that death was on its way (either due to the belief that the crows were a bad omen or due to the belief that they were the very servants of death themselves.) A lot of the fear surrounding crows comes from the fact that crows are hard to see at night (they have dark colored feathers after all), and they’re not very picky about what they eat. This is because crows are actually a carrion bird, so they have no problem eating something whether it is alive or dead and decaying. As a result, their rather creepy eating habits, their dark appearance, and their tendency to eat the crops of hardworking farmers have earned them a reputation as creatures of death and disaster.
8. The Crow’s Caw and Murder: A single crow flying over a house, a single crow inside a house, or a crow cawing is considered to be a sign that someone nearby may be about to suffer a violent and/or unexpected death, especially if the cawing seems to be coming from far away.
Origin: As I mentioned above, crows have been associated with death since ancient times largely because of their dark appearance, their somewhat unusual taste in food, and the level of devastation they can cause to crops and livestock (which may, in turn, lead to the death of the people the farms serve through starvation.) However, the crow’s association with murder actually arose sometime during the 15th century when a number of scholars began to create specific terms to describe specific groups of animals. The term used to describe a group of crows was actually a murder, and while the exact origin of the term is unknown, it was probably related to the crow’s reputation as a harbinger of death. According to the Word Detective, the origin of the term may have also been related to the level of intelligence that crows have shown as they are considered to be incredibly intelligent animals capable of using tools, capable of using past experiences to anticipate behavior, capable of recognizing specific humans by their facial features, and capable of communicating their past experiences to other crows at a later time by cawing. If there were ever an animal (other than a human of course) with the skills necessary to carry out a murder, it would be a crow.
Dying to learn more about superstitions and their origins? Part IV of 13 Superstitions and Their Origins will appear next week!
Photo credit: wolfpix / Foter.com / CC BY-ND
Works Consulted
Morris, Evan. “Murder of Crows, etc.” The Word Detective. Evan Morris. 22 Feb. 2009. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.
Nosowitz, Dan. “Seattle Girl Befriends Neighborhood Crows, Making Bird Lovers Everywhere Jealous.” Audubon.org. National Audubon Society, 2 Mar. 2015. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.
Sewall, Katy. “The Girl Who Gets Gifts from Birds.” BBC News. BBC. 25 Feb. 2015. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.
Wikipedia contributors. “Corvus (genus).” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Dec. 2015. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.