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Tattoo Meaning

Raven Tattoo Meaning: Norse Huginn-Muninn, Haida Northwest Coast, Poe's Raven, and Gothic

Raven tattoo meaning: Norse Odin-Huginn-Muninn imagery, Haida Northwest Coast formline (cultural-sensitivity notes), Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 poem, Gothic-blackwork.

Published

Manuscript illumination of Odin with his ravens Huginn and Muninn, 18th-century Icelandic manuscript.
Odin with Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory), from an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript. Raven tattoos in Western design descend primarily from Norse iconography (Odin's ravens) and Pacific Northwest formline tradition (Raven as trickster-creator). These traditions are distinct; conflating them in a single tattoo design is a form of cultural compression worth being explicit about. Icelandic manuscript ÍB 299 4to (18th c.), Landsbókasafn Íslands. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Raven tattoos most commonly mean memory, thought, death, and mystery. Specific registers: Norse Huginn-Muninn (Odin's two ravens in Grímnismál 20, Prose Edda); Haida Northwest Coast formline (Raven as creator-trickster, Bringhurst's A Story as Sharp as a Knife; cultural-sensitivity concerns apply); Poe's 1845 The Raven (Gothic-American literary imagery). See our raven spirit-animal page.

See our raven spirit-animal page.

See the full spirit-animal meaning: Raven Spirit Animal .

Frequently asked

What does a raven tattoo mean?
Memory, thought, death, mystery. Specific registers: Norse Huginn-Muninn, Haida creator-trickster (cultural-sensitivity concerns), Poe's 1845 The Raven. See our raven spirit-animal page.

Sources

  1. REFERENCEOur raven spirit-animal page
  2. REFERENCEOur cultural-position page
  3. PRIMARYPoetic Edda, Grímnismál 20 — Larrington trans., Oxford World's Classics, 2014.
  4. PRIMARYEdgar Allan Poe, The Raven (1845) — American Review, January 1845.