Valravns On The Prowl!

Special for Lokorum

Watch

V is for Valravn by Deimos-Remus

A little something different! Wanted to mess around with pleasing line shaping and silhouette within a constrained square. It’s very loosely my character Innocence/Val, if you squint and use your imagination to fill in the blanks.

No Context Crow #78: Swamp Crow

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

Getting there! He finally looks like something. Glueing is always the scariest part for me so I’m glad it went okay.

Now onto trimming. I’d started here but it was just to see the eyes for glueing.

I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what the mythical creature valravn from Danish folklore is but after diving deeper it’s more versatile than expected.

The version I was originally told is that a valravn (means “war raven” or more precisely “raven of the fallen” as in fallen people on the battlefield) is a normal raven that gained human intelligence by eating the flesh or brain of dead people after a battle. With the gift of intelligence also came the curse of only being able to fly at night. The only way to gain the ability to move around in daylight was to eat the heart of a young boy. Then the valravn would be able to turn into either a human or a raven/wolf beast and go wherever it wanted whenever it pleased.

But in the most well known song about valravens they’re all human men who were turned into ravens by either a witch or a female troll. A women was told her husband could only turn back if he drank her blood so she asks another valravn for help. It agrees in exchange for the life of her first son as soon as he has spoken his first three words, suggesting an infant would be too young.

In yet another version the valravn is a human who cannibalised dead people on the battlefield and turned into a raven or a human/raven/wolf monster that could only travel at night but would continue the cannibalism until it ate a young boy at which point it would be able to turn back to a human form.

So take your pick. You want a weird creepy raven that has decided it wants to be a human? Or a tragic story of someone who can only turn back by hurting their beloved? Or perhaps a wendigo style creature who became a monster after committing the taboo of cannibalism? Or maybe a mix? Because clearly Danish people in the past weren’t too worried about the valravn canon. The only generally agreed on lore is that they’re always male, can only travel at night and they eat humans or drink human blood to reach their final form or be cured.

#inktober day 21 - #nachtkrapp 🦅 Art by @blaze_acciarini @joyfulshadeofblack #ofmonstersandmyths #inktober2018 #monster #art #arts #arte #illustrator #illustration #sketch #sketchbook #germany #ink #inkart #artist #artistsoninstagram #artistsofinstagram #creepy #instaart #halloween #artistic #artwork #creative #instadaily #instacool #pigmamicron #raven #bird #drawing https://www.instagram.com/p/BpNZ7rQBh28/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=yc7i4cs9yezy

i love hellblade (inktober 2017)