The Three Ravens- Dowling (Ohio) 1906
[From The Three Ravens in Ohio by John S. P. Tatlock; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 31, No. 120 (Apr. - Jun., 1918), p. 273. Tatlock's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
THE THREE RAVENS IN OHIO.--In 1916 Professor Tolman published in this Journal (29:I55) modern versions of several ballads to be found in Child's collection. May I add one more, a broken-down version of the magnificent "Three Ravens" (No. 26 in Child). It was given the writer in 1915 by one of his students, Mr. Paul H. Dowling of Los Angeles, who had heard it sung by a boy named Keir, when in a grade-school in Columbus, O., about 1906.
There were three crows sat on a tree,
And they were as black as crows could be.
Said one old crow unto his mate,
"What shall we have for supper to ate?"
"There lies a horse in yonder plain
Who was by some cruel hunter slain.
"We'll perch upon his bare back-bone,
And pick his eyes out one by one."
JOHN S. P. TATLOCK.
[This short version of "The Three Crows " has had wide circulation in America. Professor T. P. Cross reported it from Virginia in 1907; a Virginian copy is printed in "The Focus," 5 : 281; others are reported in the Bulletin of the Virginia Folk-Lore Society, No. 4, p. 5, No. 5, p. 6. See also JAFL 27 :63, 28 :20, (Reed Smith, South Carolina and Tennessee), 29 : 400 (Cox, West Virginia); F. C. Brown, " Ballad-Literature in North Carolina," p. 9; B. L. Jones, "Folk-Lore in Michigan," p. 5. Belden has a copy from Missouri. The currency of the piece is due in large part to its vogue on the minstrel stage in the sixties and doubtless earlier. It was rendered as a comic song with an imitative refrain (still common). See "Frank Converse's Old Cremona Songster," pp. 36-37, with music (included in " The Encyclopaedia of Popular Songs," New York.