THE THREE RAVENS: ALIVE AND WELL IN
GLOUCESTERSHIRE – Gwilym
Davies
Reprint of an article which
first appeared in Folkwrite 14, 1983)
During
my collecting of songs in Gloucestershire, I have found that
one of the most popular pieces among country singers is the “Two (or
three)
Black Crows”. In fact, from 1974 to 1978
I noted six different versions in various parts of the county. A typical version is as sung by Charlie
Clissold of Hardwicke, near Gloucester.
There were two crows sat on a tree
As black as black as crows cold be
Said one old crow unto his mate
‘What shall we have this day to ate?’
We’ll fly away to yonder barn
And fill our gutses up with corn
And when we’ve ate and flown away,
What will the poor old farmer say?
I’ll go away and get my gun
And I’ll shoot those buggers one by one
For the more I sows, the more I grows,
It’s all eaten by those bloody crows.
Perhaps
some of its appeal is those resonant old English expletives
in the last verse! Note that Charlie’s
tune is based on the old hymn tune, the “old Hundredth” and several of
the
other versions that I have use the same tune.
It was also sung in Gloucestershire to a version of the
“Quartermaster’s
Stores”, and in the following version, collected from Bob Cross of
Witcombe, it
was sung to the tune normally associated with “Ye Banks and Braes” or
in East Anglia
with “The Foggy Dew”. This same tune was
associated with the song in a Canadian version collected in 1950 in Nova Scotia.
(Each
verse is first spoken and then sung)
There were three crows sat on a tree
And they were as black as crows could be –
all sing.
And one old crow said to his mate
‘What shall we have this day for bait*?’ - all sing
*snack
They flew across the burning plain
To where an oxen had been slain – all sing
They perched upon his big backbone
And pecked his eyes out one by one – all sing
Along came a farmer with his gun
And shot them all, excepting one – all sing
And that old crow flew into a tree
And said you old bugger, you shan’t shoot me
– all sing
The
device of first speaking the words and then singing them occurs
in other versions of the song. I have
heard it performed thus in West
Sussex. Bob’s
version shows older elements than Charlie’s and it’s worth
tracing back the history of the song. The
first known version, dated 1611, is from Ravenscroft’s Melismata, where
it was
arranged for four voices, The 1611 text
ran:-
(Spelling
has been modernised)
There were three ravens sat on a tree
Down-a
down, hey down, hey down
There were three ravens sat on a tree
With a
down
There were three ravens sat on a tree
They were as black as they might be
With a
down, derrie, derrie, derrie down, down
The one of them said to his mate
‘Where shall we our breakfast take?’
Down in yonder green field
There lays a knight slain under his shield.
His hounds they lie down at his feet
So well they can their master keep.
His hawks they fly so eagerly
There’s no fowl dare him come high.
Down there comes a fallow doe
As great with young as she might go
She lift up his bloody head
And kissed his wounds that were so red
She got him up upon her back
And carried him to earthen lake
She buried him before the prime
She was dead herself ere evensong time
God send every gentleman
Such hawks, such hounds and such a
leman* *lover/sweetheart
Various Scottish and North of England versions were collected in the
early 19th Century, and the ballad was listed as number 26
in the
collection of Frances James Child. One
Scottish version of about 1818 had the words:
We’ll sit upon his bonny
breast bane
And we’ll pick out his
bonny gray een
which is quite close to Bob Cross’ version and also to this graphic
set of words from Tony Ballinger of Upton St Leonards, near Gloucester:
In yonder field there lies an ‘oss
And he is but three days dyud*
*dead
We’ll tear the flesh from off his bones
And we’ll tear the eyes from out his yud*
*head
The songs seems to have faded from memory in England
in the 19th Century, and in fact Cecil Sharp, the greatest
of all
English folksong collectors, did not come across it at all in England,
although he noted several versions in America. Bertrand Bronson, in his
major work “The
Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads” stated that the song was
widely
known in America in “debased forms” and suggested that its popularity was
due to its
vogue in old minstrel shows. It is
possibly via America, then, that the song made its appearance in England. I have recently discovered
that a similar
version to Charlie Clissold’s is current in the Royal Navy, so it seems
as
though the song is good for few years yet.
Bob Cross’ and Charlie Clissold’s versions can be heard on:
- Folktrax
417 ('All Brought up on Cider')
- Veteran
VTC4CD ('Down in the Fields')