The Seba library treats Raven in 8 passages, across 4 authors (including Radin, Paul, von Franz, Marie-Louise, Abraham, Lyndy).
Raven felt very sorry for the few people in darkness and, at last, he said to himself, 'If I were only the son of Nas-caki-yel I could do almost anything.'
Radin presents Raven as trickster-creator whose compassion for humanity drives a scheme of cosmic transformation, establishing the bird's defining double nature as both cunning deceiver and benefactor of light.
, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956thesis
Father Raven went about and planted herbs and flowers. He discovered some pods, and he looked at them and opened one, and a human being popped out of it — beautiful and completely grown, and the Raven was so bewildered that he threw his bird mask back, and through his bewilderment he became a human being again himself.
Von Franz reads the Alaskan creation myth to show Raven as a shape-shifting demiurge whose encounter with the human reveals the reciprocal transformation inherent in the creator-creature relationship.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
it is said: 'Thus Father Raven created the earth, but the little sparrow was there first.' And this sentence suddenly at the end of the story places an emphasis, as though the little sparrow was still the more ancient and the more important figure, in spite of his ineffectiveness in the creation.
Von Franz identifies a structural paradox in Raven mythology: the active creator is nonetheless subordinate in priority to a more archaic, passive presence, complicating any simple identification of Raven with originary power.
, Creation Myths, 1995thesis
In the German version, the anima emerged from the first dunking as a raven, from the second as a dove, so she evidently has the flighty element in her... In the Christian world, the raven was thought to be a representation of the sinner and also of the devil. In antiquity, on the other hand, the raven belonged to the sun god Apollo.
Von Franz traces the raven's ambivalence in fairy tale to its dual cultural inheritance — demonic in Christian symbolism, solar in classical antiquity — using it to articulate the evasive, unredeemed quality of anima contents.
, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales, 1970thesis
Equivalent terms are crow, crow's head and raven. The raven and jackdaw are both members of the crow family. The jackdaw is depicted in plate 20 of Salomon Trismosin's Splendor Solis illustrating the putrefaction of the Stone at the nigredo.
Abraham establishes the raven as a primary alchemical emblem of the nigredo stage, equating it with putrefaction of the prima materia and situating it within a family of black-bird symbols marking the darkest phase of the opus.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998thesis
Raven scattered the fresh water out of his mouth to make rivers and streams. Because some people who were fishing for eulachon would not take him across a river, he let the sun forth, and they fled into the woods or ocean.
Radin documents Raven's cosmogonic acts — the distribution of fresh water and the release of sunlight — alongside his petty vindictiveness, illustrating the inseparability of creation and trickery in this mythic cycle.
, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956supporting
Once Raven went to a calm place just outside Sitka and made many waves by rocking his canoe, since which time it has always been very rough there.
Radin catalogues Raven's mischievous and acquisitive behavior — quarrel-incitement, theft, bodily mishap — emphasizing the trickster's capacity to transform the world through consequence rather than intention.
, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956supporting
Raven remained four days as guest of the inua in the belly of the whale, and during the entire period was trying to ascertain what kind of tube that could be, running along the ceiling.
Campbell frames Raven's stay in the whale's belly as a night-sea journey variant, in which the trickster-hero's characteristic greed precipitates a crisis that enacts the mytheme of death and renewal.
, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015supporting