page_title: Cultural depictions of ravens
section_title: Emblems: heraldry and mascotry
hierarchical_section_title: Cultural depictions of ravens / Emblems: heraldry and mascotry
caption_attribution_description: English: Arms of Corbet Baronets of Moreton Corbet, cr. 1808: Or, a raven sable (Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.204)
context_page_description: Many references to ravens exist in world lore and literature. Most depictions allude to the appearance and behaviour of the wide-ranging common raven. Because of its black plumage, croaking call and diet of carrion, the raven is often associated with loss and ill omen. Yet its symbolism is complex. As a talking bird, the raven also represents prophecy and insight. Ravens in stories often act as psychopomps, connecting the material world with the world of spirits.
  French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss proposed a structuralist theory that suggests the raven obtained mythic status because it was a mediator animal between life and death. As a carrion bird, ravens became associated with the dead and with lost souls. In Swedish folklore, they are the ghosts of murdered people without Christian burials and, in German stories, damned souls.
context_section_description: Ravens are common charges in world heraldry. Within British heraldry, the raven is believed to derive from Norman symbolism. The Corbet family, which can trace unbroken male descent to the Norman conquest of England, traditionally uses a raven sable upon a field or as its symbol, only varying it by adding bordures or additional birds. Other corvids, such as the crow and the rook, are not typically distinguished from ravens.
  The coat of arms of Lisbon recalls the story of St. Vincent's ravens.
  The common raven is the official bird of the Yukon and of the city of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
  The common raven serves as a city symbol in Baltimore owing to the downtown location of Edgar Allan Poe's gravesite. Poe's most famous poem inspired the name and colours of the Baltimore Ravens, a National Football League team.
caption: Arms of Corbet baronets of Moreton Corbet, cr. 1808: Or, a raven sable[30]
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