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One for sorrow, two for joy — the counting rhyme, first printed in 1780, actually refers to magpies.Animals · 790 searches a month
Crows as omens
One for sorrow, two for joy — the counting rhyme, first printed in 1780, actually refers to magpies.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Norse and Roman sources; the counting rhyme from 1780
That makes it
about 246 years old
Rank by age
26 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Animals
Searched
790 a month
Crows and ravens follow armies and gather at carrion, which put them at battlefields before anyone else. The association with death is observational before it is mystical.
Why it stuck. Crows genuinely do recognise individual human faces and hold grudges for years, which is documented — so the sense of being watched deliberately is not imagined.
What is going on
Corvids are among the most intelligent animals tested, using tools and planning ahead. The unease they produce is a response to real cognition.Where it applies. Ominous across Europe; in Japan and parts of Native American tradition the crow is a creator or guide.
Recorded around the same time
Crows as omens is the 26th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →