two ravens

This is an old and very sad Scottish ballad I recently rediscovered. It was probably already old by the time it first appeared in print, in 1611, and seems to be a more cynical version of the somewhat earlier "Three Corbies," an idealistic and romantic poem about a departed warrior and those who mourn him.

"Twa Corbies" turns the original on its head, and emphasizes the transitory nature of life, the fragility of loyalty, and the tragic and destructive aspects of a culture of violence and war such as prevailed in the middle ages and early Renaissance. Note that the dead man is a knight, the proudest creation of a society of professional warriors whom one modern historian called "a terrible worm in an iron cocoon."


As I was walking all alane⁄(1),
I heard twa(2) corbies making a mane(3);
The tane(4) unto the t'other say,
‘Where sall(5) we gang(6) and dine to-day?’

‘In behint yon auld fail(7) dyke,
I wot(8) there lies a new slain knight;
And naebody kens(9) that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

‘His hound is to the hunting gane(10),
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame(11),
His lady's ta'en another mate,
So we may mak(12) our dinner sweet.

‘Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane(13),
And I'll pike(14) out his bonny blue een(15);
Wi ae lock o his gowden(16) hair
We'll, theek(17) our nest when it grows bare.

‘Mony(18) a one for him makes mane,
But nane(19) sall ken where he is gane;
Oer((20) his white banes[21], when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw(22) for evermair.’

NOTES
1. alone
2. two
3. moan
4. one
5. shall
6. be going
7. turf
8. believe
9. knows
10. gone
11. home
12. make
13. breast bone
14. pick
15. eye
16. golden
17. feather
18. many
19. none
20. over
21. bones
22. blow

Colored loinoleum-block print, "Twa Cprbies," by Julie Francine Abowitt.