Note 179 — Chapter X · Witchcraft.
Reading edition
From Miss Elizabeth Chepmell, Nancy Bichard, and Rachel Duport.
Editor’s Note.
“In German Switzerland, a crow perching on the roof of a house where a corpse lies, is a sure sign that the dead is damned.” Swainson’s Folk-Lore, p. 84.
“In Germany ravens are believed to hold the souls of the damned, sometimes to be the evil one himself.” Idem., p. 90. “The raven was indeed, from of old endowed with the holy awfulness of the Christian dove in the Norse mythology. Odin was believed to have given this bird the colour of the night, that it might the better spy out the deeds of darkness.” Demonology and Devil-Lore, by Conway, Vol. 2., p. 368.