The Two Ravens- Cunningham (Scotland) 1825
[This is a re-write of the Threee Ravens by Allan Cunningham in 1825 from his The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern; Volume 1 - Page 290. Cunningham has made the stanzas six lines and added an original second stanza. Curiously this version was collected in the United States. Cunningham's version of the ballad was written down by Mrs. Henry C. Gray's grandfather (c. 1900) from Cleveland's Compendium which was published in Philadephia in 1848, with subsequent editions reprinted in 1859 etc.
R. Matteson 2012]
THE TWO RAVENS- The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern; Volume 1 - Page 290 Allan Cunningham - 1825
There were two ravens sat on a tree,
Large and black as black might be,
And one unto the other 'gan say,
Where shall we go and dine to-day?
Shall we go dine by the wild salt sea?
Shall we go dine 'neath the greenwood tree?
As I sat on the deep sea sand,
I saw a fair ship nigh at land,
I waved my wings, I bent my beak,
The ship sank, and I heard a shriek;
There lie the sailors, one, two, three:
I shall dine by the wild salt sea-
Come, I will show ye a sweeter sight,
A lonesome glen and a new slain knight;
His blood yet on the grass is hot,
His sword half drawn, his shafts unshot,
And no one kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair.
His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame,
His lady's away with another mate,
So we shall make our dinner sweet;
Our dinner's sure, our feasting free,
Come, and dine by the greenwood tree.
Ye shall sit on his white hause-bane,
I will pike out his bonnie blue een;
Ye'll take a tress of his yellow hair,
To theak yere nest when it grows bare;
The gowden down on his young chin
Will do to rowe my young ones in.
O cauld and bare will his bed be,
When winter storms sing in the tree;
At his head a turf, at his feet a stone,
He will sleep nor hear the maiden's moan;
O'er his white bones the birds shall fly,
The wild deer bound and foxes cry.
Ritson has reprinted from Ravenscroft's "Melismata" the dirge of the "Three Ravens;" and Sir Walter Scott has given us in the Minstrelsy "The Twa Corbies," a traditionary dirge, communicated by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. of Hoddam. They are both wild romantic songs, and seem of the same origin. The Scottish version is more consistent; the English copy more touching: but the Corbies of the former speak and act in character; while the "fallow doe" of the latter breaks in upon the strict keeping of nature.
Down there comes a fallow doe
As great with young as she might goe.
She lift up his bloody hed,
And kist his wounds that were so red.
She got him upon her back,
And carried him to earthen lake.
She buried him before the prime;
She was dead herself ere even-song time.
God send every gentleman
Such hawks, such hounds, and such a leman.
Something of the same kind of supernatural feeling belongs to one of the early poems of Coleridge, and the superstition is neither uncommon nor strange. The present version is made up from various readings and recitations. It is difficult to say how much is of England or of Scotland; or how much is new, or how much is old. The English song first appeared in 1611, and it was old then.