Through the night sky the
Night Raven can be heard crying out with its "Kaw, Kaw." The Night Raven is
much larger than any ordinary raven, even as big as an aged hen. It is also
called the eternal wagon-puller. It is said that in his part of the Heavens
he desired to be travelling and wandering forever. Thus he will be driving
for all eternity, seated in the middle on the horse of Heaven's Wagon. The
four great stars to the rear are great wheels. The three stars at the front,
forming a crooked line, are three horses. The little star above the middle
one of these is the Night Raven, the eternal puller of the wagon. He steers
the three horses, and because the wagon always travels in a circle, they are
not in a straight line, but in a crooked one, for they are always making a
turn.
Before midnight, they say,
he drives outward, and the wagon-tongue bends upward; but after midnight he
drives it homeward, and then it bends down.
Source: A. Kuhn and W. Schwartz,
Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus,
1848), pp. 199-200. This version retold by Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe.
Notes: The constellation described
in this legend is better known as the Plough or Big Dipper; Ursa Major (the
Great Bear). Jacob Grimm (in his Deutsche Mythologie), states that Ursa
Major was also called "Odin's Wagon" in ancient northern Europe, Odin's
well known links to the Raven is perhaps support for this theory through this
tale.