Medducation: Language, Literature & Life
Archetypal
Symbolism Links
Explore the texts to deepen your knowledge
Fairy Tales, Fables and Myths:
Archetypal Goldmines
All fairy tales contain key archetypes that still hold a real power in our world. People often dismiss fairy tales because they think that they are just made up stories that we use to either put kids to sleep or scare them into behaving.
Because fairy tales are some of our oldest known stories, they are a great place to start when looking into the origins, meaning and significance of an archetypal symbol, trope, story or character.
Click the following links to explore archetypes in some of our most familiar stories:
The Crow Family:
A Murder of Archetypes
We humans have had no choice but to develop a very significant relationship with our carrion-eating cousins, the corvidae family. They were here before us, they share our taste for meat, and they are unbelievably skilled at sniffing out any dying or dead creatures from miles away.
This meant that whenever blood would be spilled near humans, crows would never be very far behind. Because notable members of the corvidae family, the dark feathered crows and ravens, were so effective at sniffing out scenes of human tragedy, and because they would continue feasting on flesh long after it had died, we logically began to connect their presence with death and tragedy. The fact that ravens were smart enough to start hanging around the Tower of London - a place where the British government liked to have people imprisoned, murdered or executed, thus ensuring a supply of tasty raven food - demonstrates this keen connection to death. And since we also associate the night and darkness with death and the afterlife, the shiny black feathers of the crow and raven made them ideal symbols for all things related to death and the afterlife.
The Tower of London is actually supposed to fall into chaos if the six captive 'Tower Ravens' ever leave the grounds. The birds themselves are associated with eating the eyes out of a decapitated queen's head and various other disturbing visuals you wouldn't want in your head come dinner time. This is exactly why some people doubt that the Tower Ravens came to the castle on their own. More skeptical critics suspect the ravens were brought in as a sort of carnival freak show act designed to scare the masses at public executions. They believe that these ruthless rulers were acting on the ancient connection to the archetypal symbolism of the raven as being a bringer of death or a carrier of souls. With any archetype you analyze, you'll quickly notice how much fact and fiction seem to weave together in the 'historical evidence' you explore. This is what makes them so fascinating to study. There isn't really ever an 'answer' with archetypes, there are only questions.