Yes, Barbara, that's what I always understood.

Rich, if you want a more astringent and realistic version, "Twa Corbies" is in the database here.

Incidentally, the words in the database seem to be a bit "Anglicised", and in the process have, to my mind, lost some of it's immediacy and impact. For a good discussion on the poetic structure of the poem and the choice of words see "The apple and the spectroscope" by T. R. Henn, Methuen 1951.

TWA CORBIES 2 from the DT (amendments in red = word changes to the version given in Henn, blue = corrections to make more sense (In my opinion))

As I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies makin' mane
And tane ontae the tither did say
Whar sall we gang and dine the 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 and hound and his lady fair

His hound is tae the hunting gane
His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame
His lady's ta'en anither mate
So we may mak' our dinner sweet

"Ye'll sit on his white hause bane
And I'll pike out his bonny blue e'en
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare.

Mony a one for him maks mane
But nane sall ken whar he is gane
O'er his white banes when they tane are bare
The wind sall blaw for evermair

The notes in the DT imply that the Three ravens is the original which was (possibly) re-worked by Scott in his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border", III, 239, ed. 1803.

Henn argues for the opposite transition based on the use of language in the versions. He notes that the "Minstrelsy", although he does not mention it by name, is the first written record of Twa Corbies, but does not mention any earlier record of Three Ravens. I wonder if Bruce can shed any further light?

Pete M