. It is fairly easy to fit a creature onto a bracelet that is 1 and 1/2 inches wide or 2 inches wide, but it has proved much more difficult to compress the personality and ego of a Raven in 1/2 inch, and that goes for other creatures too, not just Raven.
One of my favorite Raven stories is the one about the blind halibut fisherman. Raven is an enigmatic creature; he can be kind and noble, or cruel and dishonest. He does the best things, often for the wrong reasons or he will be gluttonous and rapacious, and do terrible things for no apparent reason other than he wanted a snack, or some other trivial reason. One morning while admiring the sun on his glossy black feathers (he is just a trifle vain) he noticed a blind fisherman come to his canoe with a basket of octopus meat, and his halibut hooks intending to catch a few halibut. When he pulled away from the shore Raven followed.
When the fisherman baited his hook and threw it into the water Raven would dive down to the bottom and very carefully remove the octopus meat from the hook and sneak to the surface and eat it. If you have ever had a slow day fishing you know how frustrating it can be especially when you pull up your hook and find your bait has been stolen. Frustration can make one hyper-vigilant, this is the state we find our fisherman in. He fixed the next piece of octopus meat very firmly on his hook and threw it into the water and kept the line a little tighter so he could feel the slightest nibble. Raven was finding this so easy he was getting a little careless, and as he stole the bait he made the tiniest movement of the hook. The fisherman gave a prodigious jerk on the line and pulled up his hook. Attached to his hook was a smoothly pointed object the blind man could not identify even after spending a great deal of time feeling it all over, so when he got home he put it on a pole outside his house hoping someone could identify the object but the next morning it was gone.
The object was Raven’s beak! The fisherman had jerked it right off his face, and being vain Raven did not want to be seen beakless, let alone have to explain that he lost it stealing from a blind man! When you are looking at totem poles, especially old ones you will see a human looking character with feathery arms and what looks like an Egyptian Pharaohs’ beard. This is Raven with the broken beak hanging down under his chin like a beard, as he had considerable trouble reattaching it!listen to ravens here.
Hand-carved Sterling Silver Little Raven bracelet by Owen Walker, .5 inch width. 1/2″ width.
D39price: $250.00