Twa Corbies

Some medieval bard must have thought that yesterday's poem "Three Ravens" was overly melodramatic because this parody appeared during the same era. It has the hawk and the hound and the lady fair all running off and leaving the poor dead night to the crows.

Twa Corbies (A parody of “Three Ravens” by an anonymous poet of the same era.)

As I was walking all alone,
I heard two crows (or ravens) making a moan;
One said to the other,
“Where shall we go and dine today?”

“In behind that old turf wall,
I sense there lies a newly slain knight;
And nobody knows that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound and his lady fair.”

“His hound is to the hunting gone,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl home,
His lady’s has taken another mate,
So we may make our dinner sweet.”

“You will sit on his white neck-bone,
And I’ll peck out his pretty blue eyes;
With one lock of his golden hair
We’ll thatch our nest when it grows bare.”

“Many a one for him is moaning,
But nobody will know where he is gone;
Over his white bones, when they are bare,
The wind will blow for evermore.”