Sunday morning music

 

I've long known about the Scottish traditional song "The Twa Corbies" ("The Two Crows").  It tells of two crows talking about the body of a young knight that they've found, and plan to eat.  They go into detail about how he's been abandoned by "his hawk, his hounds, and his lady fair," and how they'll eat him and then line their nest with his hair.  It's a fairly gruesome song by modern standards, but by medieval European standards it wasn't outlandish at all.

Here's Old Blind Dogs with a live rendition of the song.

Interestingly, translating the song from Gaelic to older Northern European languages proves that its words and meanings are entirely understandable, and the song fits those cultures as well.  Perhaps the common Viking heritage of those parts of the world has something to do with that.

Here's a version translated into Danish by folklorist Svend Grundtvig (1824–1883).  It was re-translated into Norwegian, and is here performed by Norwegian folk rock group Folque on their eponymous first album in 1974.

Interestingly, the Scottish "Twa Corbies" finds a less sinister echo in the seventeenth-century English ballad "The Three Ravens".  In this rather different rendition, the three birds discuss a dead knight they have found.  His pregnant lover collects his body and buries him before dying at his graveside, while his dogs and hawks protect his body from scavengers.  The song ends:

"God send euery gentleman
Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman".

Here's a performance of the song by The Black Country Three in 1966.

Songs from a very different time.

Peter