A passion for Odin's bird.

LAST week, when the tide was beginning to run (the twice-weekly event often betrayed by gull clamour, heard clearly when the wind is in the right quarter), a sombre raven passed over the house.

We plotted the course instantly, for the building faces due south.

The huge, dark bird flew steadily on, straight as an arrow-flight, a few points west of due south - the front of the cottage facing that way.

Betrayed by the deep bass 'pruk, pruk', the bird soon disappeared into the grey overhang lingering over low green hills barely a mile away.

Not the Lakeland fells but smooth-flanked coastal drumlins, relics marking the flow of prehistoric ice sheets, even though the last of these disappeared perhaps as much as 12,000 years ago.

I think I fell in love with ravens - magnificent kings and queens of the crows - one bleak winter day on top of Fairfield.

I walked - after a fashion - on cobbled, wind-polished ice, thankful for the steel crampons underfoot.

On that day I was accompanied by two lovesick ravens; their display over and about me - sometimes unnervingly close - is a cherished memory.

That occasion, that marvellous display of aerial mastery more than half-a-century ago, can never be forgotten.

Why solitary birds over the house? Is it the habit of one individual only? Past bird records of the Walney Reserve mention very few ravens indeed.

So where does the solitary bird (if indeed it be the same one each time crossing this house) end up if not on Walney?

South Lakeland has a steady population of these birds - indeed, one observer (two years ago) recorded an assembly of more than 40 ravens, all in the vicinity of a single dead sheep.

Now that few people will destroy such a magnificent bird or risk taking eggs from the crags this huge crow flourishes - even though farm carrion is much less than in pre-war days and any in the fields must be removed quickly as dictated by current law.

Which, one would think, ensures that all Lakeland ravens are forced to range far and wide away from home ground searching for food.

Until an annual count and careful raven check is carried out (over several years if it is to be effective), it is difficult to make predictions of future populations of this marvellous bird.

The raven is ever associated with the Vikings, for did not the great god Odin favour them? Indeed, his Norse name, among several (including Woden), was Hrafnagud, meaning the ravens' god.

He kept a pair of these birds named Hugin and Munin (sometimes Mugin), the names meaning mind and memory.

They brought him 'news of all the world'.

A more believable practical use of the raven was in seeking land.

Released from a ship out of sight of land, the ship followed the raven's course unless the bird returned quickly - which meant that land was still far away.

Always favoured by the Norsemen, these Vikings often bore a raven on their standards under the name of Landeyda - the land ravager.