Counting Crows: What the Number of Crows Symbolizes

Arkane Curiosities

Sure, a big flock of crows is a murder. But often you’ll only see a few crows at a time. In some cultures, crows are associated with intelligence, mystery, and magic. The number of crows symbolizes different things, from good luck to death.

One Crow

Crows are linked with the afterlife and death. Seeing a single crow means you have a message from someone recently deceased. This often means bad luck for you.

Two Crows

If one crow means destruction, a pair of crows signifies harmony and good luck. New opportunities are coming your way. A new chapter of your life is about to begin.

Three Crows

Bad luck comes in spades when you see three crows together. Something is going to die. It could be an old relationship. It could mean illness will strike a loved one. At the very least, you’ll get some bad news.

Four Crows

Four crows on the horizon? Cash is coming your way. Four crows symbolizes good luck and prosperity. Maybe a promotion at work or you discover a new source of income. Either way, take advantage of this opportunity. You’re on the right track.

Five Crows

Five crows represents sickness. You or a family member might catch an illness or suffer mental distress.

Six Crows

This is the most powerful bad luck. Six crows? Tread carefully the next few days. You might have something stolen from you… or you can lose your life. Impending doom is on your way with five crows. This moment of destruction will transform everything, possibly leading to a new beginning. The destructive event you face could be a minor bump, like a car accident. Or it could be a full on disaster. In any event, dark days are coming your way.

Any more than six crows and let’s face it, you have a murder of crows.

Tim Kane

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Enjoy a Tall Glass of Boba Fett

May28

If Star Wars were a drink, then you could enjoy a glass of Boba Fett.

Tim Kane

The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga

May24

Arkane Curiosities

Picture a small thatched hut of warped boards, old rusty nails, and decaying thatch. Bizarre symbols and human skulls adorn the walls. You step too close and the hut rises up, perched atop gigantic chicken legs growing out of the foundation. This is the dancing hut of Baba Yaga, one of the most bizarre and bewildering sights in all of Slavic folklore.

The Dancing Hut

The Dancing Hut was originally a simple wooden cabin, built by Baba Yaga as a place to retreat and conduct her sorcery in solitude. Over time, however, the Hut began to take on a life of its own, growing in size and becoming increasingly twisted and malevolent. Perhaps, Baba Yaga cast a powerful enchantment on the Hut, imbuing it with a sinister sentience that allowed it to move and dance of its own accord.

Why chicken legs? Does Baba Yaga have a fondness for poultry? It might be a nod to the ancient Slavic tradition of using chicken feet in various magical rituals. Baba Yaga simply incorporated this imagery into the Hut as a symbol of her power.

One site mentions that Baba Yaga’s hut might not have always resided atop chicken legs (or курьи ножки meaning chicken bones). Instead it might have sat on smoked legs (курные). This is the practice of setting a house up on wooden struts saturated with smoke to avoid rot. This was common in the houses of the dead where Slavic people stored the ashes of their ancestors.

Ditching the Broomstick

Baba Yaga didn’t use the conventional methods of flying like a broomstick or flying carpet. Picture, if you will, a gigantic wooden mortar, with a pestle as long as a tree trunk jutting out from one end. Baba Yaga sat in the hollowed-out bowl of the mortar, gripping the pestle like a joystick, cackling maniacally as she hurtled through the skies. Yes, you read that right. A mortar and pestle, the kind used for grinding herbs and spices in the kitchen.

She did incorporate a broom in flying. Not for the flying part, but to keep her peregrinations secret. The witch gripped a broom constructed of silver birch and swept away any traces of her passage.

Be Warned

For those brave enough to seek out Baba Yaga and her dancing hut, the rewards can be great. The witch is known to possess great knowledge and power, and those who approach her with respect and humility may find themselves blessed with her gifts.

But be warned: Baba Yaga is a creature of chaos and contradiction, and her dancing hut is but one facet of her strange and otherworldly existence. To encounter Baba Yaga is to embark on a journey that is both perilous and profound, a dance with the unknown that may lead to either enlightenment or destruction.

Tim Kane