3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: RTim
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 11:53 AM

There is a new article about the Three Ravens on the Musical Traditions web page by Arthur Knevet....
see - http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/three_ravens.htm

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 02:56 PM

Hi Tim
I know Arthur well and I'll tell him to his face, IMHO all fanciful conjecture with no solid proof behind any of it.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 03:03 PM

There is absolutely no reason to believe the song was written before Ravenscroft's time and see my post of 3rd August for the allegory.

The concensus among ballad scholars is that Scott wrote 'Twa Corbies'. Anything he altered is irrelevant to The Three Ravens.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 03:04 PM

Thanks for that link, RTim. Very interesting article.

I like Thomas Ravenscroft's statement on the front page of the book:

"To all delightfull except to the spitefull, to none offensive except to the pensive."

This is a vocal version of The Three Ravens:

Lumina Vocal Ensemble

I forgot to mention that in music class we sang the tune with harmonies, so that is the way I remember the song.

(I'll refrain from discussing why high voiced male tenors singing these sorts of tunes as if they are being strangled is not the way I remember these songs, which would explain why I didn't make a link to some other versions available on YouTube. LOL)

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 03:07 PM

Performed by the City Waites feat. Lucie Skeaping

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Oct 19 - 06:32 PM

I dunno about Scott's authorship, of the "Corbies," Steve. According to Malcolm Douglas on

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=9564&messages=47#1238100

"Scott ...was sent it by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 'as written down, from tradition, by a lady' (Minstrelsy, edition of 1812: II, 214). Child (I, 253) quotes a letter from Sharpe to Scott (August 8, 1802): 'The song of 'The Twa Corbies' was given to me by Miss Erskine of Alva (now Mrs Kerr), who, I think, said that she had written it down from the recitation of an old woman at Alva."

Which is not to say that it was old at the time.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Oct 19 - 08:52 AM

I concur to that, Jon, but what Scott published in MSB he eventually admitted to interfering with to some extent. This leaves us with the possibility that what he was sent might have been a version of Three Ravens which he drastically altered. Sharpe himself was known as something of a ballad 'broker'.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 21 Oct 19 - 11:41 PM

I just happen to have picked up "New slain Knight" by Deborah Grabien. It is part of the haunted Ballad series and offers an interesting alternative interpretation to the ballad and its Welsh origins.
The library was excessing it and the title caught mine ee.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 12:18 AM

Well, EBarnacle, are you going to maintain the mystery or give us an idea of the author's interpretation? LOL

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 08:03 AM

My bad, it takes place in Cornwall. I started reading it last night and before I fell asleep I was 100 pages in.
The central characters are musicians and the story relates to a family tragedy occurring to the ancestors of one of the musicians. There are elements of rape, incest and infidelity and murder in the novel.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 10:27 AM

> There are elements of rape, incest and infidelity and murder in the novel.

Unlike "The Three Ravens." That's progress! ; )

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 11:25 AM

Welsh origins????? London's now in Wales?


>>There are elements of rape, incest and infidelity and murder in the novel<<

If these were actually in the ballad it would give it far greater qualification as a Child Ballad than it had.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 03:06 PM

Thanks EBarnacle, I'll have to see if I can find a copy in the library or bookshop, although rape & incest are not my preferred topics to read about.

Just remember, Steve, the majority of readers of the novel would never have heard of The Three Ravens song, and probably don't care whether the story has any authenticity.

As a now-deceased musician friend of mine once told me when I was laughingly jazzing up a re-telling of an incident which sort-of happened to me, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story".

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 05:32 PM

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story". Amen to that!

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 07:11 PM

" . . . did not allow a want of facts to stand in the way of a good story." -- D. W. Green, "Moose - II: An Expedition into New Brunswick," _Forest and Stream_, 28 June 1902 , p. 509.

(With thanks to my friend Charles Doyle.)

Like so many others, the quote, in one version or another, is widely but incorrectly credited to Mark Twain.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 22 Oct 19 - 07:55 PM

Well, Lighter, I'll just credit the version of the quote that I heard to the maker of my lever harp. Whichever way you say it, it's still funny. If the story is worthwhile, that is, and not just a big fat lie with evil intent.

Oh, shut up, Helen! Back to the topic.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 12:13 PM

Helen-

I like your interpretation, which is close to what my mother used to say about the song.

Someday we'll track down my mother's painting, which was originally purchased by our family doctor Virginia Hamilton of Bath, ME. This is one of the few paintings by her that we do not have a photo of, which makes the search more difficult.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 02:48 PM

Good luck finding the painting, Charley.

You might strike it lucky by doing an image search on Google.

I just tried it with this search term:

painting of "three ravens" song

Click the search button and then click the Images tab under the search box.

The double quotes around "three ravens" helps to narrow the search instead of lots of results relating to "three" or "ravens" individually.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 12:59 PM

Helen-

I wish it were that simple. Two other song illustration were auctioned on eBay in 2007 and we've been able to locate them and re-photograph them, "Barney Buntline/Sailors Consolation" and "Get Along Little Dogey."

Cheerily,
Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 03:37 PM

Oh well, Charley, it was worth a shot. You might strike it lucky.

I have been doing paintings in the last few years and I always take photos of them.

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Oct 19 - 12:19 PM

We've done that over the years but I'm thinking this one slipped through the cracks. In general my mother's inventory of artwork over 90 years is 99% complete.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: 3 Ravens (Ravenscroft) what's it about?
From: Helen
Date: 27 Oct 19 - 04:36 PM

Well, Charley, that's a good record of achievement.

Maybe you could take up painting yourself and recreate it from memory. That's a serious suggestion. I don't know what your artistic skills are but maybe you inherited some talent from your Mother.