Birds · plate 29 of 60
Raven
Corvus corax
Clever, loud, plays in the snow, remembers your face.
Only 1.9% of people are Ravens. (estimated)
If you're a Raven
You are the smartest person in the room and you have worked out the room. Ravens solve puzzles, barter, plan ahead, slide down snowbanks for fun and remember a human face for years; you are curious about everything, loyal to one partner for life and loud about both. You follow the wolves because that is where the food is.
A raven that knows it is being watched will pretend to hide food in one place and then quietly stash it somewhere else.
The Raven as a spirit animal
Matching a Raven says you are quick, curious and sociable in a slightly alarming way. You learn by taking things apart, you hold grudges with precision and you mate for life while keeping a wide circle of friends and enemies. The flaw is that intelligence this restless needs a target, and when it has none, it makes one. You could be a scientist. Mostly you are a nuisance with excellent timing.
Grounded in how the species actually lives; nothing borrowed from anyone's tradition. Why we put it that way.
How to get along with a Raven
Do
- Keep them busy; a bored Raven invents trouble.
- Play back; they test friends with games and respect those who join in.
- Apologize properly if you cross them, because they remember faces for years.
Don't
- Don't try to fool them twice. Once was already a stretch.
- Don't leave anything shiny or edible unattended and expect it to stay.
When it goes wrong: A Raven under pressure gets loud, sarcastic and starts testing everyone's patience on purpose; give the brain a problem to chew on and the mood sorts itself out.
The Raven in a relationship
You pair for life and flirt for sport. Raven couples fly in tandem, roll together in mid-air, share food and preen each other's heads; you show love by bringing things, fixing things and mocking your partner fondly in public. Nobody else gets to do that. You have made this clear.
Field notes
Every animal is placed on six personality traits derived from how the species lives. Your answers are placed on the same six, and the closest animal wins. How the scoring works
- Sociability
- 6
- Boldness
- 8
- Energy
- 7
- Curiosity
- 10
- Devotion
- 9
- Roaming
- 5
- The raven is the largest songbird in the world and lives everywhere from deserts to the Arctic.
- Ravens pair for life, but young unpaired birds roam in gangs and call to recruit each other to a carcass guarded by an adult pair.
- Ravens follow wolf packs to their kills and have been seen playing with wolf pups.
Ravens in literature
- Grip — Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens (1841)
- The Raven — The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
- The Seven Ravens — Grimm's Fairy Tales (The Seven Ravens), Brothers Grimm (1812)
Characters from public-domain works. Company, not a verdict.
Closest personalities
The animals whose profiles sit nearest to the Raven's. If you got Raven, one of these was probably your runner-up.
Other birds
EagleOwlHummingbirdPeacockPenguinFlamingoAlbatrossParrotSwanWoodpeckerFalconOstrichPigeon
Among the 60
Joseph Wolf (1820–1899), The Royal Natural History, Richard Lydekker (1895). Public domain, viacommons.wikimedia.org.All credits
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