Crow and Raven Symbolism

In Japanese, the crow is karasu, written 烏 or 鴉, and the raven is watarigarasu, 渡鴉, the crow that crosses over. Across the world, crows and ravens stand for intelligence, prophecy and the passage between worlds. In Norse myth, the god Odin sent two ravens out each day to bring him news. On the Pacific Northwest coast, Raven is a trickster and a creator. In much of European folklore, a crow at the window was an omen. Japan has its own long story with the bird, and in it the crow is most often a messenger and a guide.

Raven and crow in Japanese: 烏 and 渡鴉

烏 (karasu): crow. It is sometimes written 鴉, with the same reading and meaning.

The raven has its own name, 渡鴉, watarigarasu. 渡 (wata) means to cross over, so the raven is “the crow that crosses”: in Japan it is a winter visitor, crossing to Hokkaido from the north each year.

The crows of everyday Japan are mostly two species, the large-billed crow and the carrion crow. The large-billed crows of Tokyo are famous for their intelligence and their nerve.

Are there ravens in Japan?

Yes, but only a few. The common raven reaches Japan as a winter visitor to Hokkaido. The black birds of Japanese cities and temples are crows: the jungle crow, hashibuto-garasu, and the carrion crow, hashiboso-garasu.

Messengers of the gods

Japan’s oldest chronicles tell of a great crow sent from heaven to guide Jimmu, the legendary first emperor, through the mountains of Kumano: Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow. The crow is still honoured as the messenger of the Kumano shrines, whose talismans are written in characters drawn as flocks of crows.

The crow in poetry

The crow is one of the great subjects of Japanese poetry. The best-known haiku about one is by Matsuo Bashō:

kareeda ni / karasu no tomarikeri / aki no kure

On a withered branch, a crow has settled. Autumn evening.

The crow of winter, kan-garasu, is a seasonal word of its own in haiku, and Japanese children grow up singing about crows flying home to their young at sunset.

Omens and mountain spirits

Like crows everywhere, the Japanese crow has a darker side. In some regions an unusual cawing was taken as a sign that someone would soon die. And the tengu, the mountain beings of Japanese folklore, took their oldest form from the crow: the karasu tengu, with a crow’s beak and wings.

In the collection

Yatagarasu 八咫烏, the three-legged crow. The guide sent from heaven to lead Japan’s first emperor through the mountains.

Kareeda 枯枝, the withered branch. Bashō’s haiku of a crow on a bare branch at autumn dusk.

Kangarasu 寒烏, the winter crow. A seasonal word of haiku for the coldest weeks of the year.

Kazakiri 風切, the flight feather. The wind-cutter, and what a crow or raven feather is said to mean.

Karasu 渡鴉, the raven. How to tell a raven from a crow, and why Japanese calls it the crow that crosses.

Mure 群, the flock. What a group of ravens is called, and the old ballad of the three ravens.