Blog: The Muse In Music

We have to suspend disbelief when we say it, but fairy tales used to be scary. According to nineteenth century Danish lore, royalty killed in battle were buried, lest they were eaten by ravens. The birds, upon eating a fallen king's heart from his chest, became valravns: devilishly smart, with superhuman powers, capable of seizing a man's will and guiding his hand. Other incarnations of the valravn - as expressed in the 1985 film Ladyhawke - found that these birds were prisons for human souls, bound to flying only at night, locked away in [...]