One of the first ballads I learned is "The Three Ra'ens" (Ravens), Child #26, from a folio of 20 songs sung by Richard Dyer-Bennet. Was the song as I sang it a "cover?"

Dyer-Bennet was a light tenor. I am a bass-baritone. Our voices are much different. So I had to change the key from the one Dyer-Bennet sang it in. This altered the bass lines and runs, and contrapuntal lines I played from chord to chord. So my guitar accompaniment sounded a bit similar to Dyer-Bennet's but it was really quite different. And considering the style of the period from which the song came, I ended it with a "Picardy third" in the final chord I play. An A major chord rather than an A minor. Dyer-Bennet didn't do that. He ended with the tonic minor.

The earliest (written) record of the song is Thomas Ravenscroft's Melismata, 1611.

Also, the song repeats the first line of each verse, and I felt that this cut into the dramatic impact of the song by making it unduly and a bit tediously long. So I telescoped two verses into one by simply not repeating the first line of each verse

Instead of

There were three ra'ens sat in a tree
Down-a-down, hey down-a-down.
There were three ra'ens sat in a tree,
With a down,
There were three ra'ens sat in a tree,
And they were black as they might be.
With a down, derry derry derry down, down.

I sang

There were three ra'ens sat in a tree
Down-a-down, hey down-a-down.
And they were black as they might be.
With a down.
Then one of them said to his make (mate)
Oh, where shall we our breakfast take?
With a down, derry derry derry down, down.

Two verses for the price of one.

By telescoping like this, I came up a couple of lines short. So I looked at other versions of the ballad (and there are many versions) and added a verse from another version.

I did not write the song, God knows. It's a ballad at least four hundred years old, probably a lot older--and is found in several languages, Norwegian, Swedish, German,Hebrew.... I learned it from Richard Dyer-Bennet's song folio. And I heard his recording of it.

Was I singing a "cover?"

I don't think so.

Don Firth