ODIN AND HIS TWO RAVENS

BY FERUZA GHIAS

For our “crows group project” my group members and I decided to do canvas drawings with corvid representation in them. One canvas will have a drawing of the Norse God Odin and his two ravens. The second canvas will have a drawing about a Native American famous tribal story, where the raven steals the sun. And lastly, the third canvas will be a Native American tribal inspired story.

My drawing of Norse God Odin

What I learned from this group project is that crows and other corvids often appear in ancient stories and they symbolize something important. In the Norse mythology, for example, Odin is the God of War who has 2 ravens. These two ravens are named Hugin (which represent ‘thought’) and Muninn (which represent ‘memory’). Both of these ravens would bring news about the world to Odin every morning. The representation of ravens in this story is significant, because it portrays them in somewhat positive way. Another thing I learned from this project is the evolution of ravens and crows. Corvids had eight million years ahead start on humans in the evolution race, which in this terms means that they have developed intellectual in a more advanced way than humans (Marzluff and Angell 2005). I was not surprised when I came across this information because we have already studied and uncovered the corvids’ intelligence in our Scientific Journeys: crows class, especially their tool making strategies for survival needs.

    

References:

Marzluff, John M., and Tony Angell. In the Company of Crows and Ravens. New Haven: Yale UP, 2005. Print.