Naming Raven

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is my very favourite book. Susanna Clarke painstakingly (brilliantly, humorously, horrifically) reimagines a Victorian-era Europe in which magic exists, but its practice has fallen into near-obscurity. During previous centuries a powerful faerie-raised human known as John Uskglass and/or the Raven King kept English magic flowing freely from his stronghold in the North, but he and his company have forsaken the human world in exchange for...elsewhere. They are, however, not above abducting the occasional pretty girl:

Not long, not long my father said
Not long shall you be ours
The Raven King knows all too well
Which are the fairest flowers

The priest was all too worldly
Though he prayed and rang his bell
The Raven King three candles lit
The priest said it was well

Her arms were all too feeble
Though she claimed to love me so
The Raven King stretched out his hand
She sighed and let me go

This land is all to shallow
It is painted on the sky
And trembles like the wind-shook rain
When the Raven King goes by

For always and for always
I pray remember me
Upon the moors, beneath the stars
With the King's wild company

When I bought Raven her name was Ebony, which was too unsubtle for my tastes. Family and friends made several suggestions but she quickly struck me as a creature belonging partly to the Raven King. That poem has been lodged in my head since being confronted with the possibility of losing my black beauty, so I thought I would share it with you.

For her part Miss Thing is doing better each day. She has the endearing habit of pawing at the air with one hoof when she's really excited about her feed, and she did that tonight for the first time in a week. Warmed the cockles of my heart. Tomorrow we cut the bandage off to assess the joint and the medications from herein, but I strongly suspect that none will be needed.