Valravn
supernatural raven in Danish folklore
A valravn is a supernatural raven in Danish renaissance folklore. It principally appears in the folk ballad "Valravnen" (Danish: The Valravn) where it is depicted as a knight who was transformed into a raven, and whose curse can only be broken by consuming the blood of a boy.
Folk ballad
The ballad "Valravnen" has the type DgF 60/TSB A 17. The earliest version of the ballad is known from Jens Billes Håndskrift (Danish: Jens Bille's Handwritten Notes), dated to 1555-1559, though the ballad is thought to have originated in the late Middle Ages. The following is the second-oldest version of the ballad, version B:
Ballad versions
There are generally agreed to be six primary versions of this ballad, titled A, B, C, D, E, and F, with C having four derived versions (Cabcd) and F having eight derived versions (Fabcdefgh).
Version A (the earliest version) follows a significantly different structure than the rest, which has led some to consider it a transitional version between the ballad "Germand Gladensvend" (DgF 33/TSB A 74) and the later versions of "Valravnen." Version Fa was authored by Anders Sørensen Vedel in 1590, as a rewrite or "summary" of all the versions known to him at the time. Version Fb is a 1590 rewrite of Vedel's version for the purpose of publication in leaflets and pamphlets. Versions Fcdefgh are rewrites of version Fb from the 1800s. Thus, version A and versions Fabcdefgh are considered non-canonical, or "non-independent."
Version A is the only pre-1800s version of the ballad that refers to the transformed bird as "valravn," and it only does so in the sentences "vilde valle ravn," "vilden vallen ravn" (Danish: wild 'wald' raven) and "vilden valravn" (Danish: wild valravn). As "vallen" is a nonsense word, some linguists have speculated that "valravn" may be an example of alliteration.
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This entry incorporates text from “Valravn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.