Blog Banners? Better believe it . . .

Got a new banner up late last night because I got tired of futzing around with my name not appearing in the search line. A lot of the blogs I read by writers have very evocative banners -- a design that hints at the writing process or the genre or a mood the writer wants to instill.

So, why have I chosen a raven for my banner?

Ravens feed on dead things, their call at times a croak, their plumage the color of death. Because of my Swedish background, I was fascinated to read in Wikipedia that ravens were used in Viking war banners, one such banner named "land waster."  Even at the Tower of London, ravens were a symbol of death, said to gather at beheadings, and protected by royal decree. Legend has it that the Kingdom of London will fall if the ravens are removed from the Tower of London.

In Standing Stones, as Mac McDonnell is being taken by boat to the Thames in London to await transportation to Van Diemen's Land, he counts the ravens gathering along the stepped gables and remembers an old saying: "One for sorrow, two for mirth; three for a wedding, four for death."

And here in the Pacific Northwest, a long tradition by native peoples says the Creator made two ravens -- one, the creator, bringer of light out of darkness, and the second, the trickster raven, the childish one, selfish, charming, not to be trusted. (Note: This is book 3 calling me once again as the story, River of  Stones, will be set in the Pacific Northwest.)  I will draw on this contradiction for my banner, the raven as the symbol of something unknown, larger than life, perhaps not to be trusted, implacable, but yet even close to death, full of life.

I took my new banner photo of a raven at Stirling Castle, a mere 25 miles northeast of Glasgow, Scotland, a wonderful castle that is open to the public. We were in Scotland in 2009 doing research for Standing Stones and wandered through the courtyards and halls where great dramas had unfolded, where kings and queens had been crowned.

In the very back of the castle, we watched a team of weavers recreating a famous tapestry that somehow wound up in New York City's Metropolitan Cloisters Museum. This set of 'new' tapestries would once again grace the stone walls of Stirling Castle. I found a carved mermaid here, hidden in a back stairwell that led to the throne room.

If you have read Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and The Unicorn, you know the call of this mysterious set of tapestries. For the Unicorn Tapestries are in Paris, at the Museum for the Middle Ages, in a room of their own, slightly darkened to protect them, and more gorgeous than I imagined. The Metropolitan has one such tapestry, The Unicorn in Captivity. For more about the Stirling Tapestries, go here. To read about the cultural depictions of ravens go to Wikipedia.

If you are here from the Ultimate Blog Challenge, what does your blog banner say about you?

Detail of Unicorn at the Fountain, Stirling Castle

The unicorn . . .

A maiden waits in leafy bower
in quiet repose, bound in terror,
long hours gone, her forehead gleams
white, her eyelids droop in dreams
asleep, her hand falls open.
The unicorn, of jeweled eye and jeweled horn,
approaches slowly. With bated breath,
hunters watch the maiden sleep, a little death.
Is she virgin, the hunter hisses. The unicorn
will know: Its nostrils flare,
he dips his head, once, twice he circles lady fair,
then settles down beside her thighs,
thus ensorceled to amazed cries.
As hunters rush the sacred circle,
the maiden wakes to dreams banished;
the unicorn's white, white flesh vanished.



Yesterday we visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the current residence of the Queen here in Edinburgh, and its exquisite abbey. As we walked into the central courtyard, a majestic fountain greeted us, embellished with mythical animals, a lion, griffin, deer, and a unicorn. This castle and accompanying abbey date from the 12th Century. The lion and the unicorn, their past history together uncertain, are paired everywhere, well washed with gold and glitter.

I've long been a fan of Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn, but her book leaves the relationship of the lion and the unicorn unsolved. Once we went to England, we saw the lion and the unicorn everywhere as symbols of royal power. I learned last night that Stirling Castle (just north of Glasgow) has a team of master weavers working on the Hunt of the Unicorn, a set of tapestries, perhaps inspired by the famed 14th Century tapestries currently at the Musee de Moyen Ages, or Cluny, in Paris, the Lady and the Unicorn. Legend suggests these tapestries once were at Stirling Castle. I hope we can go there before our last three weeks in Scotland end.