The following verses, first printed in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and known in several versions in Scotland, are treated by Motherwell and others as a traditionary form of 'The Three Ravens.' They are, however, as Scott says, "rather a counterpart than a copy of the other," and sound something like a cynical variation of the tender little English ballad. Dr Rimbault (Notes and Queries, Ser. V, III, 518) speaks of unprinted copies taken down by Mr Blaikie and by Mr Thomas Lyle of Airth.
THE TWA CORBIES.
a. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, III, 239, ed. 1803, communicated by C. K. Sharpe, as written down from tradition by a lady. b. Albyn's Anthology, II, 27, 1818, "from the singing of Mr Thomas Shortreed, of Jedburgh, as sung and recited by his mother." c. Chambers's Scottish Ballads, p. 283, partly from recitation and partly from the Border Minstrelsy. d. Fraser-Tytler MS., p. 70.
1
As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies making a mane;
The tane unto the t'other say,
'Where sall we gang and dine to-day?'
2
'In behint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And naebody kens that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.
3
'His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak our dinner sweet.
4
'Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike out his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We' theek our nest when it grows bare.
5
'Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken where he is gane;
Oer his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.'
'The Three Ravens' is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, p. 145, No 23; by Henrietta Schubart, p. 155; Gerhard, p. 95; Rosa Warrens, Schottische V. l. der Vorzeit, p. 198; Wolff, Halle der Völker, I, 12, Hausschatz, p. 205.
'The Twa Corbies' (Scott), by Grundtvig, p. 143, No 22; Arndt, p. 224; Gerhard, p. 94; Schubart, p. 157; Knortz, L. u. R. Alt-Englands, p. 194; Rosa Warrens, p. 89. The three first stanzas, a little freely rendered into four, pass for Pushkin's: Works, 1855, II, 462, xxiv.