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Ravens are very common in villages where wheat is grown. Where there is wheat, there are also many small animals such as mice and rats; the ravens eat the tiny mice or even the dead rats, and are therefore ideal for containing diseases at an early stage. Our livestock has been less sick since the ravens arrived, and in general, the harvest has always been good when there are fewer mice and rats in the wheat fields.
But the trained eye knows these ravens are different. Their eyes glow red as they sit in the shade and watch you from the trees. Their caws are mocking and seem to be a language more than anything else. They talk to each other, eavesdrop on the village, and then report back to their master.
Valraven is a god of shadows and ravens. These feathered servants are his eyes and ears, his spies in the forests and mountains. They report and obey only to him.
Or so they say. My grandfather always warned against telling secrets when the ravens are in the trees, for Valraven is under the direct control of the Norns, and everything that the fates know will be used against you. My grandfather may have been a stoic old man, but he knew things about this forest that are now lost.
It's also said that Valraven himself was once a raven. He ate the heart of a king who died on the battlefield, and that is how he gained the knowledge and wisdom of men. There may be other deities like him, those who operate in the shadows and serve the great gods and forces of nature, but in this part of the land, Valraven is the only one I have ever seen.
One evening, very late on a cold winter's day, I saw him only once. I was creeping through the trees, looking for deer to sustain the village through the winter. There he was, the scrawny little man, wrapped in rags, with a young raven on his shoulder. He spoke to his birds as if they were his kin; and they probably are. He told them about the black beast, about Berserkir. That this monster gets tired in winter, exhausted by all that plagues it.
What exactly that means, I can't say. I ducked low and walked backwards until I could no longer see the Raven God; only the deep cawing of his birds accompanied me out of the forest. I didn't dare go deep into the forest for another two weeks, for fear the ravens would peck my eyes out. But that didn't happen, and once again I realized that we humans are of little importance to these gods.
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