Corbie noun raven, crow, rook
‘… birds of war, the corbies had come to feast on the flesh of the fallen.’ (Voyager)
Corbie, like laverock (lark) and mavis (thrush), is now more often found in poetic or literary use than in everyday speech. During its history, the word has identified various members of the crow family. It is not always possible to tell whether a corbie is a raven, crow or rook, but in historical sources it’s often the raven. In Robert Henryson’s fifteenth-century Fables, for example, the bird that plays the role of court official in The Tale of the Sheep and the Dog is known as ‘Schir Corbie Ravin’.
In some texts, the meaning is made explicit by the immediate context. Sir Richard Holland’s fifteenth-century Book of the Howlat (owl) provides our earliest record (c.1450) of the use of ‘corbie messenger’ to refer to the raven sent out by Noah in the Biblical story of the Flood. Holland writes: ‘corby messingere ... Thow ischit owt of Noyes ark and to the erd wan, Taryit as a tratour and brocht na tythingis’, which translates as ‘corby messenger ... You left Noah’s ark and successfully reached the land, Remained there as a traitor and brought no news’. In later use, ‘corbie messenger’ also means any messenger who is tardy or unfaithful, or someone who has been sent on an April-Fool’s errand.
The word has appeared in a variety of publications, including Nick Cave’s 1989 novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, a tale of cruelty set in southern America. Cave’s reasons for using the word are unclear. He may have known it from his native Australia or discovered it in America. One of his characters comments: ‘And the crows - they still wing, still wheel, only closer now - closer now - closer now to me. These sly corbies are birds of death’.
A gone corbie is someone on the brink of death. In Iain Banks’ 1992 novel The Crow Road, Prentice explains: ‘… the saying: away the Crow Road (or the Craw Road) … It meant dying; being dead. “Aye, he’s away the crow road”, meant “He’s dead”.’