y,
She burnt like hoky-gren.

[Annotations:
3.1: 'birl'd,' poured; 'him,' _i.e._ for him.
4.4: See First Series, _Brown Robin_, 7.4; _Fause Footrage_, 16.4;
and Introduction, p. li.
6.2: 'gare,' part of the dress. See First Series, Introduction,
p. 1.
8.3: 'flattering,' wagging.
9.4: 'wand,' wood, wicker.
13.1: 'pot,' pot-hole: a hole scooped by the action of the stream
in the rock-bed of a river.
13.3: 'truff' = turf.
17.3: 'duckers,' divers.
21.3: 'sakeless,' innocent.
24.5: 'wyte,' blame.
24.6: 'May,' maid.
26.6: 'hoky-gren'; 'gren' is a bough or twig; 'hoakie,' according
to Jamieson, is a fire that has been covered up with cinders.
'Hoky-gren,' therefore, is perhaps a kind of charcoal. Scott
substitutes 'hollin green,' green holly.]

THE THREE RAVENS

and

THE TWA CORBIES

+The Texts+ of these two variations on the same theme are taken from
T. Ravenscroft's _Melismata_, 1611, and Scott's _Minstrelsy_, 1803,
respectively. There are several other versions of the Scots ballad,
while Motherwell prints _The Three Ravens_, changing only the burden.

Chappell (_Popular Music of the Olden Time_) says of the English version
that he has been 'favored with a variety of copies of it, written down
from memory; and all differing in some respects, both as to words and
tune, but with sufficient resemblance to prove a similar origin.'
Consciously or not, the ballad, as set by him to its traditional tune,
is to be sung without the threefold repetition shown by Ravenscroft,
thus compressing two verses of the ballad into each repetition of the
tune, and halving the length of the song.

THE THREE RAVENS

1.
There were three rauens sat on a tree,
_Downe a downe, hay down, hay downe_
There were three rauens sat on a tree,
_With a downe_
There were three rauens sat on a tree,
They were as blacke as they might be.
_With a downe derrie, derrie, derrie, downe, downe._

2.
The one of them said to his mate,
'Where shall we our breakefast take?'

3.
'Downe in yonder greene field,
There lies a knight slain vnder his shield.

4.
'His hounds they lie downe at his feete,
So well they can their master keepe,

5.
'His haukes they flie so eagerly,
There's no fowle dare him come nie.'

6.
Downe there comes a fallow doe,
As great with yong as she might goe.

7.