The Three Ravens

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "The Three Ravens" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads/Part 1/Chapter 26

"The Three Ravens" (Roud 5, Child 26) is an English folk ballad, printed in the songbook Melismata^[1] compiled by Thomas Ravenscroft and published in 1611, but the song is possibly older than that. Newer versions (with different music) were recorded up through the 19th century. Francis James Child recorded several versions in his Child Ballads (catalogued as number 26).

The ballad centers three scavenger birds conversing about where and what they should eat. One tells the others of a newly slain knight, but they find he is guarded by his loyal hawks and hounds. Furthermore, a "fallow doe", a metaphor for the knight's pregnant ("as great with young as she might go") lover or mistress (see "leman") comes to his body, kisses his wounds, bears him away, and buries him, leaving the ravens without a meal. The narrative ends with "God send euery gentleman / Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman".