Do you know what ravens cry out when flying near your home? Many assume that their rough discordant cries are portents of disaster. Many people are afraid of them and consider them to be harbingers and messengers of death. That is for you to judge, but we will tell you our version of their story.
Once in the Western Lands, there lived a man by the name of Albee Bart, a brave and strong hunter. In the old days he used to hunt only large prey, such as saber-toothed bears and wild boars. However, recently he only hunted birds. This all came about from one terrible event.
It took place about twenty years previously. He had three seriously ill children, between five and seven years of age. One day, a huge black raven flew into the house and croaked loudly three times. Three days later, all three children were dead.
Never before in his life had Albee thought that the pain of his loss could be so unbearable that even his own death couldn’t appease it. His whole life fell apart, and he had no idea what to do about it.
He kept a large tapestry on the wall, showing his smiling sweet three children. He realized that he should have taken it down, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Three days after the funeral, his wife Malka still couldn’t stop crying. Then on the fourth day she went totally quiet. For about an hour she stared glassy-eyed at the large tapestry without pause, and she looked just like a marble statue. Albee called out to his wife several times, but she didn’t react. Finally, he decided to take down the tapestry, but as soon as he did so, his wife growled at him like a wild animal and grabbed the tapestry in a tight grip, refusing to let it go.
“What's the matter with you, you poor woman!” cried her worried husband.
“You can’t behave like this. We can’t deal with our grief if they are always there before our eyes.”
The poor man did not know what to do. He realized that the next step could be a suicide. Wanting to avoid this, the hunter went into the woods in search of an old witch, known as Astelle.
“Help me witch. I will pay you what you ask,” he said in a hopeless voice.
“I don’t want your money. You will hunt for the birds that I tell you to hunt for, for the next three years.”
“Fine. I agree to your terms.”
“Well then, I’m going to give you a special potion. When your wife drinks it after you make love to each other, she will become pregnant straight away. She will be sure to calm down, and expect three new babies to replace the three that died.”
After some time, everything happened as the old witch had promised. Malka became pregnant and gave birth to triplets: one boy and two girls.
It was a happy day in the life of the Bart family! Even though his wife still remembered her dead children, she had no time to dwell on them. Meanwhile, Albee kept his word to the witch, and brought her five or six dead ravens every week. He kept this a secret from everyone, because in the Western lands these birds were considered to be sacred.
Several years later, the children grew up strong and were already running around the place. Then suddenly one day, menacing ravens flew around the house with the same terrible cries that he had heard before, portents of misfortune. This time the hunter knew that this was no accident, but rather retribution for his murder of the sacred birds. The following day, a large heavy beam in the barn collapsed, and crushed the playing children to death. His wife saw the three more small corpses in the barn. She took a rope and hung herself. When the hunter saw this, he lost his mind.
People say that he went into the woods and began to shoot all the remaining ravens. Then he gathered them up in a large bag and carried them to the witch. When he arrived at her cabin, he saw a huge raven fly out of it. It circled around his head and croaked: “Finally, I am the last one. Don’t you recognize me?”
Nobody can say for certain if that’s really what happened, only the hunter. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find him in the woods, because now Albee spends all his time searching for the last raven.