Chris Skaife, Master Raven Keeper & Merlin The Raven
Chris Skaife & Merlin
Every day at first light, Chris Skaife, Master Raven Keeper at the Tower of London, awakens the ravens from their slumbers and feeds them breakfast. It is one of the lesser known rituals at the Tower, so Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer Martin Usborne & I decided to pay an early morning call upon London’s most pampered birds and send you a report.
The keeping of ravens at the Tower is a serious business, since legend has it that, ‘If the ravens leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall…’ Fortunately, we can all rest assured thanks to Chris Skaife who undertakes his breakfast duties conscientiously, delivering bloody morsels to the ravens each dawn and thereby ensuring their continued residence at this most favoured of accommodations.“We keep them in night boxes for their own safety,” Chris explained to me, just in case I should think the ravens were incarcerated at the Tower like those monarchs of yore, “because we have quite a lot of foxes that get in through the sewers at night.”
First thing, Chris unlocks the bird boxes built into the ancient wall at the base of the Wakefield Tower and, as soon as he opens each door, a raven shoots out blindly like a bullet from a gun, before lurching around drunkenly on the lawn as its eyes accustom to the daylight, brought to consciousness by the smell of fresh meat. Next, Chris feeds the greedy brother ravens Gripp – named after Charles Dickens’ pet raven – & Jubilee – a gift to the Queen on her Diamond Anniversary – who share a cage in the shadow of the White Tower.
Once this is accomplished, Chris walks over to Tower Green where Merlin the lone raven lives apart from her fellows. He undertakes this part of the breakfast service last, because there is little doubt that Merlin is the primary focus of Chris’ emotional engagement. She has night quarters within the Queen’s House, once Anne Boleyn’s dwelling, and it suits her imperious nature very well. Ravens are monogamous creatures that mate for life but, like Elizabeth I, Merlin has no consort. “She chose her partner, it’s me,” Chris assured me in a whisper, eager to confide his infatuation with the top bird, before he opened the door to wake her. Then, “It’s me!” he announced cheerily to Merlin but, with suitably aristocratic disdain, she took her dead mouse from him and flounced off across the lawn where she pecked at her breakfast a little before burying it under a piece of turf to finish later, as is her custom.
“The other birds watch her bury the food, then lift up the turf and steal it,” Chris revealed to me as he watched his charge with proprietorial concern, “They are scavengers by nature, and will hunt in packs to kill – not for fun but to eat. They’ll attack a seagull and swing it round but they won’t kill it, gulls are too big. They’ll take sweets, crisps and sandwiches off children, and cigarettes off adults. They’ll steal a purse from a small child, empty it out and bury the money. They’ll play dead, sun-bathing, and a member of the public will say, ‘There’s a dead raven,’ and then the bird will get up and walk away. But I would not advise any members of the public to touch them, they have the capacity to take off a small child’s finger – not that they have done, yet.”
We walked around to the other side of the lawn where Merlin perched upon a low rail. Close up, these elegant birds are sleek as seals, glossy black, gleaming blue and green, with a disconcerting black eye and a deep rasping voice. Chris sat down next to Merlin and extended his finger to stroke her beak affectionately, while she gave him some playful pecks upon the wrist.
“Students from Queen Mary University are going to study the ravens’ behaviour all day long for three years.” he informed me, “There’s going to be problem-solving for ravens, they’re trying to prove ravens are ‘feathered apes.’ We believe that crows, ravens and magpies have the same brain capacity as great apes. If they are a pair, ravens will mimic each other’s movements for satisfaction. They all have their own personalities, their moods, and their foibles, just like people.”
Then Merlin hopped off her perch onto the lawn where Chris followed and, to my surprise, she untied one of Chris’s shoelaces with her beak, tugging upon it affectionately and causing him to chuckle in great delight. While he was thus entrammelled, I asked Chris how he came to this role in life. “Derrick Coyle, the previous Master Raven Keeper, said to me, ‘I think the birds will like you.’ He introduced me to it and I’ve been taking care of them ever since.“ Chris admitted plainly, opening his heart, “The ravens are continually on your mind. It takes a lot of dedication, it’s early starts and late nights – I have a secret whistle which brings them to bed.”
It was apparent then that Merlin had Chris on a leash which was only as long as his shoelace. “If one of the other birds comes into her territory, she will come and sit by me for protection,” he confessed, confirming his Royal romance with a blush of tender recollection, “She sees me as one of her own.”
“Alright you lot, up you get!”
“A pigeon flew into the cage the other day and the two boys got it, that was a mess.”
“It’s me!”
“She chose her partner, it’s me.”
“She sees me as one of her own.”
Chris Skaife & Merlin
Charles Dickens’ Raven “Grip” – favourite expression, “Halloa old girl!”
Tower photographs copyright © Martin Usborne
Residents of Spitalfields and any of the Tower Hamlets may gain admission to the Tower of London for one pound upon production of an Idea Store card.
You may also like to take a look at these other Tower of London stories
Alan Kingshott, Yeoman Gaoler at the Tower of London
Graffiti at the Tower of London
Beating the Bounds at the Tower of London
Ceremony of the Lilies & Roses at the Tower of London
Bloody Romance of the Tower with pictures by George Cruickshank
John Keohane, Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
Constables Dues at the Tower of London
The Oldest Ceremony in the World
A Day in the Life of the Chief Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London
I’ve seen Chris and his ravens on “Secrets of the Tower” on PBS here in the USA. Cute as a button he is , when he talks about his Merlin. Thank you for this story about him and his charges on Spitalfields Life,G.A. I’ve learned quite a bit about the Tower by reading your blog ( The Ceremony If the Keys comes immediately to mind). Thank you G.A. for sharing your adventures with us .
Was today’s blog a coincidence, one of the Ravens died yesterday!
Chris is a lucky man . Thank you GA and Martin for the fantastic photos of Merlin . She is indeed a seductive beauty that could charm the birds from the trees
Greetings from Boston,
GA, what a great story about Chris Skaife and his care of the royal ravens at the Tower of London. Who knew?
Chris and Merlin make quite a pair….
Whan asked to comment Merlin replied “Nevermore”
Had a lovely conversation with Chris on a visit to the tower. Love the lore of the ravens. Sorry to hear one died. Seeing them in person is quite a treat.
I remember seeing the ravens in the Tower when I was a child. I remembered there being many more – 6 or 8 maybe – and that they were much larger. Does anyone else remember them from 60 years ago?
I don’t, but ravens have not changed size over the years 🙂 Probably it’s that you were smaller so they seemed bigger. There may well have been more of them though.
Dear Raven Master of the Tower
As an historian I’ve been hot on the trail of Noah and that he did see the sea cover the earth or what he could see it, for he’d gone over the horizon, an event he’d have no knowledge of, until Columbus. Now it states in Genesis that he let fly a raven and it flew to and fro, and the waters of he world abated , went down and in my scenario up over the horizon pops up Cyprus. We seem to forget Noah had two floods one for the raven and one for the dove. But Noah did not let fly the raven, the captain of the ship did, for Noah had no idea what the raven was for. How do I come to this conclusion, because the Vikings used ravens as ship to shore direction finding birds, for they can fly to 17000ft , can’t swim and can see well over the horizon and as soon as they see land, they head for it ,as straight as a crow flies. The captain down below yells to the man in the crows nest , which way did this big black bird , against a blue sky, go and he pulls the helm over and follows it. So it was, that Flogi Rogaland, let fly a raven on the storm tossed Atlantic and lost it, so let fly another and discovered Iceland in 813AD. But if we go to Minoan Akrotiri, a Minoan city on Santorini, we can see wall painting of ship, on which on their prows are perches and big birds. Did the Minoans who I say Noah was, know the potential of ravens and doves. If they did then I can see a whole new industry of people catching and then selling on these birds
It was this case of ravens and sea farers that made me think of why was it important to keep alive the Ravens in the Tower of London. What I do know is London was founded by the Romans, taken over by the Saxon, then by the Vikings, then taken back again by King Alfred, a Saxon. So why was it, the ravens were important to the Tower? There doesn’t seem to be an explanation, only that it’s traditional. Let me offer up a suggestion, that when King Alfred re-took London, he found ravens already there, most probably caged ravens. I think when London was in Viking hands, this is where you could buy your raven, as you departed for your next sea adventure and being Vikings and I suggest you departed from the city and port of London more often by ship than by horse.
Hope it’s of interest.
Yours Don Cox. also an old soldier 22872422
Does this kind and wonderful gentleman have a replacement if he were to be unable to continue caring for the ravens?