This Week Random Chibi Monster Girl Is A Valravnr. Please Leave A Comment On What The Next Random Monster

Valravns - Appearance

This is just my personal take on valravns. Many elements present here are not found in the source material and instead are inferences or were wholly invented by me. Feel free to use these ideas for your own valravn or valravn-inspired characters!

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The valravn is a liminal being, and each one is unique in appearance. Some appear as gigantic, eight-foot-tall raven raptors, while others are griffon-like hybrids of ravens and wolves. To complicate this matter, valravns are shapeshifters and have numerous forms for different occasions. They may blend into the environment and travel unseen as a mundane raven, then later take on a monstrous form to attack prey. The only consistency between all valravns' true forms is that they all have corvid traits in some way. They may have wolf traits as well, but this is not always the case.

Some valravns are capable of taking on a human form. They tend to give themselves armor when they do so, giving the impression that they are turning into a knight. This guise is not perfect, as there will always be something slightly unsettling and not quite right about them. While a valravn disguised as a raven can remain unassuming indefinitely, a valravn disguised as a human will inevitably be found out.

Sketch and Wip of another character concept. Val who is heavily influenced by a Danish folklore she read as a child and wishes to become the dark knight.

Jb 11/18/17 mythical beasts day 6 Valravn(e) Wiki:

According to Danish folklore recorded in the late 1800s, when a king or chieftain was killed in battle and not found and buried, ravens came and ate him. The ravens became valravne. The valravne that ate the king’s heart gained human knowledge and could perform great malicious acts, could lead people astray, had superhuman powers, and were “terrible animals”.

In another account, a valravn is described as a peaceless soul in search of redemption that flies by night (but never day) and can only free itself from its animal countenance by consuming the blood of a child.

Im still alive. I just dont know what to paint nowadays, head empty

No Context Crow #78: Swamp Crow

If this image is yours and you would like it credited or removed, let me know!

Ravn og Elg

WIP

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The Valravn breaks out

Animation Practice! I have not done real animation until the beginning of this year and it’s only been a few logo animations before my shoulder gave out. Now I’m more or less back and had this wild need to try and draw part of Zephyr’s transformation.

And guys.. I had FUN! oh my god this was a ton of fun! Kinda just did it all by gut feeling but I’m really proud of the outcome!

Valravnen is less of a vættr and more of a fairytale creature. It's only known from medieval folk songs, and only from Denmark.

Valravnen shows up in two folk songs: The appropriately titled "Valravnen" and a version of "Germand Gladensvend," where Gammen is replaced by Valravnen. In the self-titled song, valravnen is a human who has been cursed to become a raven and is only returned to his human body when he drinks the blood of a baby. In Germand Gladensvend, valravnen is a monstrous bird who helps the main characters, but asks for their first-born in return, whom he then eats - he is, however, killed by the child's mother before it is revealed why he ate the child.

Even in the song commonly known as "Valravnen," this word only shows up in two of the nine versions of the song. In the other versions, the character is referred to as Wild Raven, Salmand Raven, or Verner Raven (Salmand and Verner being human names).

According to folklorists Holbek & Piø, "valravn" (battlefield raven) is not the original name for this figure, but is instead a misunderstanding of the more prevalent name "vilde ravn" (wild raven), as the figure never appears to have had anything to do with the battlefield, and "wild raven" is a far more common moniker in medieval sources.

However, during the early-1800s nationalistic romanticist wave, poet Adam Oehlenschläger showed a clear preference for the name "valravn" and chose to exclusively use that name in his reworkings of the folksongs. By the time folklorist Svend Grundtvig started his work, by the mid-1800s, "valravn" had overtaken the earlier "vilde ravn" name in popularity.

It is Holbek & Piø's opinion that valravnen is closely related to the werewolf, since they're both transformed humans who can be freed by drinking the blood of an infant, a belief that seems exclusive to Southern Scandinavia.

According to some modern authors, valravnen is a raven that haunts the battlefield, but I have not been able to trace back the origins of this belief. It seems fairly recent, and appears to be a result of the creature's name, more than its actual folkloric presence.

The heraldic combination of a wolf and a raven has been referred to as a valravn. This has seemingly nothing to do with the folkloric valravn, just as a heraldic antelope has nothing to do with a real life antelope. It does lend some credence to the idea that the valravn and the werewolf are related, though. The werewolf is also rarely described as "varulv" in folk songs, but is more often described as "vilde ulv" (wild wolf) or "grå ulv" (grey wolf).

Sources:

Holbek & Piø (1967) "Fabeldyr og Sagnfolk"

Poul Lorenzen (1960) "Vilde Fugle i Sagn og Tro"

Just a normal bird