[Ravensfort] and yet another...

[Hoffpauir, David]

LOL, sometimes it just don't take much...

"Conspiracy" got me thinking about the formal name for bird groups, or, more specific, the name for groups or ravens.

"Unkindness of Ravens" is the most prevalent as is a "Conspiracy of Ravens."

I also ran across a "Constable of Ravens" and a "Congress of Ravens."  Constable got thrown right out, but Congress... 

Congress, although it has it modern political meaning, also means "The act of coming together."  So, 'hmmm...'  I said to myself.

"Congresse" is the middle English spelling (Middle English being from late 11th century to about 1470 a.d.).  Imagine you are Italian and put a stressed 'a' on the end and you'd have the approximate period pronunciation. Something like "Con-greys-sa"

Since the new site is exactly 20 miles, as the Raven flies, and almost exactly due south, I added south to the mix ("Southe" in middle English).

Ok, so after employing the vast resources of a public University and an hour or so of my employer's time I came up with... 

"Southe Congresse"

And considering there is already one of these in Austin, it was all pretty much a big waste of time...



But in the process, I did run across the following line in a medieval book called (in modern English)  'The Seven Sages' from about 1450 a.d.:

a1450 7 Sages(3) (Cmb Dd.1.17)   3147:  "Oppon the bote Thre ravenes lyghte adoun."

Or, "Upon the boat three ravens alighted (down)."

And from that took  "Raven's Lyghte"  

Yeah, yeah it's another raven name... but it looks good on paper and it's a nice name for poetics, if nothing else, (knight, right, site, bite, fight, kite, might, tight, blight, slight, gripe, pipe, hype, obama, llama, duck)...  lol, so toss that suggestion in as well.

;)

DSD


http://www.birdnature.com/groupnames.html