The Three Crows- Moses (NH) 1942 Flanders F
[From Flanders, Ancient Ballads; 1966; notes by Coffin follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
The Twa Corbies
(Child 26)
The tradition of "The Twa corbies" has given literature two of the most beautiful ballad poems known: the J. Ritson (Ancient Songs from the Time of King Henry the Third, to the Revolution of London, 1790], 155) and the Sir Walter Scott (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border [New York, 1902], III, 239) texts. The Ritson "Three Ravens" is a simple, honest lyric of true love without a maudlin or sentimental touch. It tells the wish of all knights, "God send euery gentleman, such haukes, such hounds, and such a leman." The Scott "Twa Corbies," on the other hand, is cynical, desolate, and Anglo-Saxon with the finality of its closing lines, "O'er his white banes, when they are bare,
the wind sall blaw for evermair."
Thus, it is surprising to study the history of the ballad. As it is rare in Britain (Child has only one text beyond the two mentioned above), as it is not known to any extent in Canada, and as there are no European analogues, one is at a loss to explain how such a restricted oral tradition has developed such perfect poems. The answer cannot be suggested by what is found in America, either. Although it is common here, it owes its popularity to a minstrel stage burlesque that had great currency about the time of the Civil War and to its inclusion in rewritten form in books like Cleveland's Compendium of 1859. The American versions are mostly nonsense material like Flanders C-J in which two crows decide to eat a dead horse and in which there are no human actors. With their lines, such as "Oh maybe you think there is more, but there isn't" and "The Devil thought to injure me by cutting down my apple tree," they are in a real sense not Child 26 at all. However, Flanders A retains much of the spirit of "The Three Ravens" text and, like the one that Earl J. stout (Folklore from Iowa [New York, 1936], 2)found preserves the fidelity of the hounds and lady love. Such a text, sporting the borrowed "red rose" cliche, is an outstanding discovery in a tradition as corrupted as this. Flanders B, though not as true to the Ritson text, is nevertheless dignified and is not from the music hall tradition of "Billy Magee Magaw." The Scott form of the song, unburlesqued and unsentimentalized, has been discovered in America, too. See Henry W. Shoemaker, Mountain Minstrelsy (Philadelphia, 1931), 276. For an American bibliosraphy and discussion' see coffin, 52-54. Dean-smith lists itbr pug. lll, and there is an extensive study of the ballad in Hermann Tardel's ZweiLied, studien, I. Die Englisch-Schottische Roben Ballade (Bremen). Jane Zielonko's remarks in her Master's thesis, "Some American variants of Child Ballads" ([Columbia University, 1945], 7l f.), are also useful.
The large number of tune families for this ballad in BC1 indicates the diversity of tunes by which this text is accompanied. Thus it is not surprising to find the three tunes presented here to be unrelated.
F. The Three Crows. As sung by Jonathan Moses in Orford, New Hampshire. M. Olney, Collector; November 19, 1942; Structure: A B C A B (2,2,2,2,2); Rhythm B; Contour: mildly arc-like; Scale: hexatonic; t.c. B-flat. For mel. rel. see the first line, BCl, group D; DV, 562 (10 J, K, and P).
The Three Crows
Oh, one old crow said to his mate,
"What shall we do for grub to eat?
What shall we do for grub to eat?"
Oh, one old crow said to his mate,
"What shall we do for grub to eat?"
"There is a horse on yanders plains
Already dressed, already slain,
Already dressed, already slain;
There is a horse on yanders plains
Already dressed, already slain.
We'll perch us and pick on his bare backbone
And pick his eyes out, one by one
And perk his eyes out one by one;
We will perch us and pick on his bare backbone,
And pick his eyes out, one by one."