A Murder of Crows! ©

  

A murder of crows, perching on an old building.  Spooky!  Photograph by the author.

For the sound of a carrion crow, corvus corone, click HERE, from “The call of a Carrion Crow recorded in a garden at Culver, near Exeter, Devon, England”, Wikimedia.

 

It is almost Halloween and the crows are flocking together for winter.  But what do you call three or more crows gathered together?

 

Why a murder of crows, of course!

 

“Hmmm...that is a rather unusual phrase for a flock of birds”, you might say, “why is it called that”?

 

That is a great question and since I didn’t know the answer, I did what I always do, and I did some research: here is what I found.

 

An excerpt from The Boke of Saint Albans, Dame Juliana Berners, 1486 as reprinted in 1901, page 114.

A murder of crows, or as it was spelled in the late 1400s and early 1500s, “a Morther of crowys”; is an old phrase that was used to describe a group of three or more crows¹.  This phrase first appeared in late medieval English books of venery², the earliest surviving examples of which were published in 1476 and 1486³.

 

Some sources say that this phrase fell out of use during the 1500s and did not reappear until the 20^th century.  In 1909 John Hodgkins, a member of the Folk Lore Society, wrote a 182 page explanation of the meaning of the various phrases, including “a Morther of Crowys”, which were found in The Book of Saint Albans and other manuscripts on venery: a murder of crows was back!

 

There are two schools of thought on why this particular phrase was used to describe a flock of crows.  The first is that crows, since they are scavengers, would have been associated with gallows, battlefields, murdered corpses and other scenes of violent death. 

 

And second, during the late medieval period in England and extending until the early 19^th century, when the statutes were repealed, it was the duty of every law abiding person who discovered a felony or had a crime committed upon them to raise the “Hue and cry”.  Anyone hearing this alarm was legally bound to join in and pursue and apprehend the offender.  Perhaps the late medieval writer who first coined the phrase “a Morther of crowys”, thought that the clamor that a raucous mob of crows makes, when they chase an owl or a hawk was similar to the “Hue and cry”?  Once upon a time, I saw a mob of really upset crows, in full cry, ganging up on an owl and it sure sounded as if they were screaming bloody murder! 

 

Personally, I think that both of the reasons are equally as likely and both probably played into the tongue-in-cheek description of a flock three or more crows, but in the end we will never really know.

 

One thing is certain though, those late medieval English woodsmen knew the difference between crows and ravens, and felt that it would be an unkindness to confuse a raven with a crow.  Maybe that is why a flock of three or more ravens is called “an unkindness of Ravens”!  In case you are confused on how to tell the difference between a crow, and a raven, read “And A Raven Came Calling…©”, HERE.

 

Happy Halloween!

 

“Carrion crows on a trash in Annecy on December 30th, 2011”, by PierreSelim, on Wikimedia, HERE.  

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

¹ Three or more crows is a murder, and today people say that two crows together is an “attempted murder”.  The reason three crows is a murder and two are simply just two crows, could be because of an old English and Scottish border ballad called “The Three Ravens”, in which three ravens are discussing why they can’t have a fallen knight for breakfast.  This version of the ballad was first printed in 1611, but it is probably older than that.  A rather darker version of this ballad is the Scottish ballad called “Twa Corbies”, or Two Crows, in which the two crows are successful in making a meal of the fallen knight, this version probably dates from the 18^th century and was first printed in 1812.

 

From Scottish Country Dancing, “The Three Ravens: English Folk Ballad – Anonymous”

 

² Venery is an archaic word for hunting, particularly as practiced by the late medieval English nobility.

 

³ the Hors, the Shepe, & the Ghoos, was originally printed by Caxton, circa 1476, and it was reprinted by the Roxburgh Club in 1822.  The Boke of Saint Albans, which contains a section called “The Compaynys of beestys and fowles”, was originally published in 1486.

 

 

Sources

 

Berners, Dame Juliana; The Boke of Saint Albans, [Reprinted by Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London, 1901], page 114, https://archive.org/stream/bokeofsaintalban00bernuoft#page/114/mode/2up, accessed October 16, 2020.

 

BirdSpot, “Why Is A Group Of Crows Called A Murder?”, [© 2020 BirdSpot], https://www.birdspot.co.uk/bird-brain/why-is-a-group-of-crows-called-a-murder, accessed October 18, 2020

 

The British Library Board, “The call of a Carrion Crow recorded in a garden at Culver, near Exeter, Devon, England”, April 2, 1961, Wikimedia, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Carrion_Crow_%28Corvus_corone%29_%28W1CDR0001425_BD18%29.ogg, accessed October 20, 2020

 

Grammarphobia; “A murder of crows”, January 18, 2008, [© 2020 Grammarphobia], https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/01/a-murder-of-crows-2.html, accessed October 18, 2020

 

Hodgkin, John; Proper Terms, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1907-1910, [Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co., Ltd., London, 1909], pages 46-47, https://books.google.com/books?id=I-gzAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA127&dq=%22morther+of+crowys%22+%22Transactions+of+the+Philological+Society%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwigvPuhtb7sAhWrnOAKHcBSCocQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed October 18, 2020

 

PierreSelim, “Carrion crows on a trash in Annecy on December 30th, 2011”, December 30, 2011, Wikimedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annecy_-_Corvus_Corone_-_20111230_-_02.JPG, accessed October 20, 2020

 

Scottish Country Dancing; “The Three Ravens: English Folk Ballad – Anonymous”, https://www.scottish-country-dancing.com/three-ravens.html, accessed October 19, 2020

 

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Hue and cry”; February 23, 2012, [Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020], https://www.britannica.com/topic/hue-and-cry, accessed October 18, 2020