There Were Three Crows- Moore (OK) 1937 Botkin A
[From The American Play-Party Song- Botkin, 1937.
R. Matteson 2014
"The Three Ravens" (Child, No. 26). Here the players form a circle and move around three in the center who are the crows and sit flapping their wings and cawing, to the singing of the lines:
There were three crows sat in a tree,
Billy McGee McGar!
There were three crows sat on a tree,
And they were as black as black could be.
They all flapped their wings and criecl :
"Cawl caw! cawl"
Billy McGee McGar!
Mrs. Ethel Perry Moore, prague, Lincoln county, who played it during recess at school taught by the teacher. Having entered into Ameriian tradition as a comic animal song, this has also become a college song and given rise to parodies. Compare "In Eighteen Hundred and sixty-Four," part Two, and the two Civil War parodies, Davis (Virginia), p. 145. This has also been communicated to me as a children's song in Indiana by Florence Whitelock. For American versions of "The Three Ravens," "The Three Crows," "The Three Black Crows," etc., based on "The Twa Corbies"'a comic version of "The Three Ravens, (Child, No. 26)
A. There Were Three Crows * (Mrs. Ethel Perry Moore, Prague, Lincoln County.)
1. There were three crows sat on a tree,
Billy McGee McGar!
There were three crows sat on a tree,
And they were as black as black could be.
They all flapped their wings and cried:
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
Billy McGee McGar!
2 Said one old crow unto his mates.
"What shall we do for grub to eat?"
3 "There lies a horse on yonder plains,
Who was by some butcher slain."
4 "We'll perch upon his bare back bones,
And pick his eyes out one by one."
* "An Experiment in collecting and classifying the Folk-Songs sung in Oklahoma" (in MS) No. 4.