Smarty Pants From The American Scholar

What’s spookier than the Tower of London, home to the ghosts of queens and the rest of Henry the VIII’s enemies? How about the half-dozen black ravens that inhabit it—without which, as legend has it, the Tower will crumble and the kingdom will fall? Since there haven’t been dead bodies littering the Tower Green for centuries, someone has to keep the ravens alive—and that person is the Ravenmaster, Christopher Skaife. As a Yeoman Warder, Skaife is one of the custodians of the Tower’s rich history and traditions, and he joins us to offer a bird’s-eye view of his life among the ravens. This episode originally aired in 2018.Go beyond the episode:Christopher Skaife’s The RavenmasterRead an excerpt about the birds’ daily routineFollow Merlina the raven (with help from the Ravenmaster) on TwitterFor more scary tales, read ex-Yeoman Warder Geoffrey Abott’s book, Ghosts of the Tower of LondonFor photographs that Skaife says “come very close to capturing the true majesty and mystery of the