send euery gentleman, Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman. The Twa Corbies Written in the Scots language, there is no record of how early "The Twa Corbies" first performed. Child (I, 253) quotes a letter from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe to Walter 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 indicates it was already known in Scotland at that date. It was first published in Walter Scott's Minstrelsy in 1812. It has a more dark and cynical tone than the Three Ravens, from which its lyrics were clearly derived. There are only two scavengers in “The Twa Corbies”, but this is the least of the differences between the songs, though they do begin the same. Rather than commenting on the loyalty of the knight's beasts, the corbies tell that the hawk and the hound have forsaken their master, and are off chasing other game, while his mistress has already taken another lover. The ravens are therefore given an undisturbed meal, as nobody else knows where the man lies, or even that he is dead. They talk in gruesome detail about the meal they will make of him, plucking out his eyes and using his hair for their nests. Some themes believed to be portrayed in "Twa Corbies" are: the fragility of life, the idea life goes on after death, and a more pessimistic viewpoint on life. The loneliness and despair of the song are summed up in the final couplets; O'er his banes [bones], when they are bare, The wind sall [shall] blaw for evermair There are a few different versions of this anonymously authored poem. The full text of at least one version of the poem is as follows: As I was walking all alane, I heard twa corbies making a mane; The tane unto the t'other say, ‘Where sall we gang and dine to-day?’ ‘In behint yon auld fail dyke, I wot there lies a new slain knight; And naebody kens that he lies there, But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair. ‘His hound is to the hunting gane, His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame, His lady's taen another mate, So we may mak our dinner sweet. ‘Ye'll sit on his