Thought and Memory
Early every morning, Odin, the father of all the gods, sat on his throne in a golden hall of Asgard. With his two wolves at his feet, and his two ravens, Thought and Memory, on his shoulders, he surveyed all the nine worlds.

As the sun rose, Odin sent Thought and Memory out across the universe. The ravens visited the nine worlds, questioning the living and the dead. Then they returned at nightfall and whispered in Odin's ear all they had seen and heard.

The ravens circled the sky, often during battle, and returned in the evening to Odin. If only one of the ravens should return, it would usher in a time of apocalypse... the consequences being a society governed by memory without thought, or thought without memory.

The story was meant to represent the concepts of a world defined by the figurative absence of the living, with the past eternally unchanged, or the rule of the present without understanding of what has come before. As for ravens, with only one, there may as well be none.

"Every morning the two ravens Huginn and Muninn, are loosed and fly over Midgard; I always fear that Thought may not wing his way home, but my fear for Memory is greater."