Crow Catcher
by Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) devoted considerable thought to the subject of ageing, exploring how to age well and noting how the elderly were often despised within society.
Her hilarious novel The Hearing Trumpet (1974) tells the story of Marian Leatherby, a crone with attitude, who evades all attempts to control her and eventually survives and thrives after an apocalypse.
This gorgeous painting from 1990, when Leonora was 73 and living in Mexico, has the same mix of humour and rebellion.
I have imagined her crow catcher as a well-organised bird hitchhiker who has, perhaps, some healing roots harvested at the dark of the moon in her possession.
I hope you enjoy the energetic mischief of this crow catcher.
May we all be as enterprising in our later years!
She sits on a fallen tree at the edge of the frozen lake, patiently waiting. In her old coat and hat, she scans the sky with bright black eyes. From a deep pocket, she withdraws a handful of yellow grain and holds out her map-lined hand.
Birds become aware of the offer and hop intelligently nearer. She picks out her target, a crow with tattered wings, and offers the corn to him. He lands and is captured in one practised movement. Her bony fingers grasp his leg and with the other fist she fights off his beak’s point until he droops, like a broken umbrella.
Now, the getting up. Her knees are hopelessly stiff, but she cannot hold on forever. The skates are already on her feet, and she staggers out onto the ice. She makes a noise, half horse-cluck, half cheer, and the crow begins to struggle again.
Gradually, momentum builds. His wings start to expand and shrink as the cold air is funnelled through the engineering of his feathers.
The old woman weighs little. She has left the marrow and accretions of her life behind in the past and is well used to coordinating her strides with other, stronger creatures. Only yesterday she rode a goat up a hill, and the dismount, though sudden, was graceful enough.
‘Fly, crow, fly,’ she calls, in her walnut-brown voice. The crow starts to beat its wings in a regular rhythm, and she holds her hat firmly on her head as they travel.
At the other end of the lake is her sister, who is ill. But soon help will arrive: the crow catcher is coming.