Sheet Music No. 26. The Three Ravens
[under construction]
CONTENTS:
1. Child A "There Were Three Ravens" from Ravenscroft Melismata, 1611
2. Child A "Three Ravens" from Ravenscroft Melismata, 1611 (Modern transcription) Dyer-Bennet
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1. "There Were Three Ravens" from Ravenscroft Melismata, 1611
2. "Three Ravens" from Ravenscroft Melismata, 1611 (Modern transcription) Dyer-Bennet
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Henry Reed; Johnny Comes Marching Home
Alternate Title(s)
The Two Crows
The Twa Corbies
The Three Ravens
Author/Creator
Collector: Jabbour, Alan
Performer: Reed, Henry; fiddle
Created/Published
October 28, 1967
Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Virginia (Giles County)
Notes
This air belongs, as Henry Reed says, to an old war song called "Johnny Comes Marching Home." It is a scion of an ancient and widespread air used for other songs in British and American tradition, including the "Two Crows" ("Twa Corbies") ballad (Child 26 "The Three Ravens"; see Bronson, "The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads"). This song was sung by Nettie Reed's uncle by marriage, Sam Ross, a teamster in the Civil War and a wounded veteran.
Key: A
Meter: 4/4
Strains: 1 (8)
Rendition: 1-1
Phrase Structure: ABAC DEFA'
Compass: 7
Spoken: HENRY REED: That's the old war song./ALAN JABBOUR: What do you call it?/HENRY REED: Something about "Johnny Come Marching Home."/ALAN JABBOUR: Uh-huh./HENRY REED: I used to hear her uncle there by marriage singing it, old uncle Sam Ross, and he could sing it, you could hear him two miles./ALAN JABBOUR: Oh really?/HENRY REED: Yeah, he knowed every bit of it./ALAN JABBOUR: When was that--when you were a kid?/HENRY REED: Yeah, when me and her was first married. He didn't live long after we was married. He was a [unintelligible]. He was knocked down with a saber in the hip, you know. He walked with the left leg bent away under that way all the time. And this hand here, he was hit with a saber over that, that hand set up like that. And there was places half as long as that fiddle bow in his back where they swiped him with them sabers. He hauled a cannon, you know, as a teamster--hauled a cannon in the time of the War between the States. They just hacked him all to pieces./ALAN JABBOUR: Good gracious./HENRY REED: One ear flopped over where they hit him. Then he got on a horse and got out. They never captured him./ALAN JABBOUR: Had that song to show for it./HENRY REED: Yeah. Yeah, that was it./ALAN JABBOUR: What other war pieces do you have? My grandmother used to use that same tune for a different song, not about the war. She used to sing it about three crows./HENRY REED: Yeah. I never . . . ./ALAN JABBOUR: I don't know if you ever heard that./HENRY REED: No, I never heard that./ALAN JABBOUR: Same exact tune, though, you know./HENRY REED: Yeah./ALAN JABBOUR: In fact, I suspect they took the tune from the three crows song and applied it, you know, to the war.
Recording chronology: 179
Duration: 2 minutes, 25 seconds