'The white raven will free the sun and the moon and the stars and bring light back into the world.'

It is said that images of the white raven, like the white hart, have this in common, that they augur the return of the light, and freedom in the world. The black raven too can be seen as a purifier, messenger of the gods, a wanderer, and for the Inuit, a teacher of survival to the first humans.

King Urien of North Rheged, possible husband of Morgan le Fay, sent his son Owein to study at the court of King Arthur. He ruled as King Ywain/Owein in the lands straddling the already crumbling Hadrian's wall, abandoned by Rome.

Sir Ywain, the Knight of the Lion (Iarlles y Ffynnawn) by Chrétien de Troyes tells of the adventures of Owein /Ywain in the magical forests of Broceliande in Brittany. He fights dragons, rescues maidens, and crucially discovers an enchanted fountain. When Ywain was trapped, he was gifted a ring of invisibility by a servant girl, (plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose) with whose help he married the widow of the owner of the fountain, but King Arthur's knights of the round table tempted him away. Returning rather late to his wife he rescued a lion, earning the name, Knight of the Lion. In real life, historically, he makes his way to Rheged to take up his crown.

He is brilliantly depicted in the Welsh poem The Mabinogion ( c13-1400AD) in the Dream of Rhonabwy. Owein is protected by his own army of ravens, who battle King Arthur's knights and pages while the two men play a game of chess. Neither of them looks up from the game to see which side is winning!

As Camelot fades, Urien and his successor Owein's hold on Rheged weakens (c630AD) and even the sites of their capitals over time is forgotten. The King Arthur of Cornish legend though lives on as a raven.

https://youtu.be/nqYiAgoQVZY

King Oswald grew up exiled as an orphan on the island of Iona in the Dal Riata, where the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland were linked across the Celtic Sea. He fought as far south as Wales to reclaim the lands of Rheged as his kingdom, but he was unable to win the battle with his wife, a Saxon princess who celebrated Christmas and Easter separately using the Roman calendar.

New to Christianity, Oswald established the monastery at Lindisfarne with monks from Iona. He paved the way for the intervention of Wilfrid of Lindisfarne in the stitch-up of the Synod of Whitby (664AD). Huge changes were made in the church, including a decision in favour of the incorrect calendar of Rome, and against the senior role of the polymath Abbess Hilde. Also, those wishing to observe the Irish Christian forms were banished from England and Scotland. Their ancient ways were gradually lost.

Tolkien at some level may have identified with King Oswald, orphan and survivor, warrior and believer. He makes a connection between Oswald and his great hero Aragorn son of Arathorn, who emerges from the mud and mists of hidden places to reign.

The raven remains in Tolkien's story. Some birds live to a great age and are able to speak, like those friendly with the dwarves of Erebor. Others reflect the darker side with a hint of Norse folklore, as Odin's two messenger-ravens who warn of war. Peregrine Took's helmet when guard of the Citadel has raven wings on either side.

'The wanderer' is another epithet for raven, like the one who flew to find a haven for Noah. Strider/Aragorn, King of Gondor, in shabby clothes walks the earth to find a way to victory as King Oswald did to establish his own kingdom, and with it arguably Roman Christianity in Britain. Both maybe a little like Tolkien himself, who battled alongside the Pals battalions with that desperation for the fires of home, and the iconic peace of Christmas.

The stories of the Arthurian legends lead directly in history to the 'Golden Age of Lindisfarne' with its flowering of religious art and its fatal attraction to the invading Vikings. Lindisfarne was the first major place of international pilgrimage in Roman Christianity, post Whitby, when the Irish traditions had sadly and quietly gone into the West. This new and vastly wealthy era, without the protection of a ring of invisibility, was soon to fall to the terrifying force of the Norsemen, leaving Christianity to fall back, reassess, and rework itself again.

https://youtu.be/6fII2sJJjBw

At Lindisfarne, the Holy Island, at the junction of the continents of Pangea from the formation of our world, where basalt rock from the earth's core extrudes, history herself give a stunning blend of myth and reality. Tolkien's debate about the 'reality of myth' is at the end of this chapter.Tolkien said he felt the best form for a novel was a pilgrimage with an object, the form he so effectively chose for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

From Camelot to the kingdom of Rheged, to the pilgrim site of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, and onwards we travel with the raven, the one who brings the bread to Elijah when he's lost all hope (Book of Kings 1, 15:6), and the one who flies out to find a haven for Noah when there's no land in sight (Genesis 8:7). Some people say that was a white raven. It seems it may be so. It fits beautifully with the legend given at the end of this video.

https://youtu.be/zdaY2I1vSpc

How to draw a raven, magical:

https://youtu.be/cNhnVXLe7JA

If you can handle the accents, a dated but fascinating portrayal of Tolkien's debate with C. S. Lewis about the reality of myth is here below:

https://youtu.be/NzBT39gx-TE

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References

Oswald - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522449/Amazing-story-Anglo-Saxon-warrior-saint-struggle-claim-rightful-place-king-inspired-Tolkiens-Aragorn.html

http://www.avesnoir.com/ravens-in-native-american-culture/

http://www.avesnoir.com/ravens-in-biblical-mythology/

https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/mysterious-dark-age-kingdom-scotland-unearthed