Of Cats and Elfins by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Author:Sylvia Townsend Warner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Handheld Press
Published: 2019-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Note

The following stories are chosen from the collection of traditional narratives current among cats, made by the late Mr William Farthing, of Spain Hall, Norfolk. The selection is the editor’s.

8 Odin’s Birds

Two ravens sat on a bough and talked of old times. Said the raven called Gret to the raven called Knob:

‘The bodies were frozen so hard that my beak ached for days after. It was really a very disappointing slaughter. Showy, of course; but quite unrewarding.’

‘I remember it well,’ said Knob. ‘I was there too. Odin was delighted. He said he had never gathered so many hero-souls in the course of a day’s fighting.’

‘Just what he would say. I have never known a more egotistic deity. Hero-souls! That’s all he thought of. Never a moment’s consideration for his poor faithful birds, hopping around the battle-field, worn out with a hard day’s flying, and tantalized with the sight of a thousand corpses frozen too hard to be edible. Yet where would he have been without us? Who would have noticed Odin if it had not been for his ravens?’

‘It must be a great many years since he died,’ said Knob. ‘He thought he was immortal. We have never claimed more than longevity, yet we have outlived him.’

‘Haw-haw-haw!’ laughed Gret.

‘Yet he was not such a bad old god. After all, Gret, there were spring and summer battles too. Then we fed well.’

‘A mere vulgar surfeit. Heaps of bodies rotting in the sun, when one-tenth of the number would have sufficed to feed us. It used to make my heart bleed to see such wastefulness.’

‘Nevertheless, I wouldn’t object to seeing a little of that wastefulness now,’ said Knob, looking wistfully over the quiet moors. ‘It is a very long time since I’ve had a good square meal of hero.’

‘My worthy Knob, you are no better than the Israelites, who sighed for the fleshpots of Egypt. Believe me, it is both healthier and more agreeable to live as free ravens. A light varied diet — sometimes a lamb, sometimes a hare, little kickshaws of black­cock or stoat or badger, and maybe a dead baby dropped by the gipsies — such a diet is really more to my taste than Odin’s monotonous table of heroes. Besides, think what an appetite sauces the food found by one’s own initiative.’

Knob made no reply. For some time the birds sat silently on the bough. Then Knob began to turn his head to the wind.

‘Tell me, Gret, do you not smell something? Perhaps it does not interest you. Your ideas are so progressive. But to me it smells like man.’

They took wing together, and flew upwind.

The smell grew stronger, and was undoubtedly the smell of man-flesh. They traced it to a scrubby and stony little oak-copse. There lay the carcass of a handsome man, large and in fine condition. But they were not the first to arrive. A young woman with dishevelled hair and a great belly was kneeling beside the dead man as though she owned him.

The two ravens flew low, and squawked, and flapped their wings, hoping to scare her.

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