The second translation is pretty good, but I think that there are some mishearings or misunderstandings still. I don't think I knew that this one was here, or I'd have addressed it before now. I think that Tri Yann's source will have been the set in Henri Davenson's Le Livre Des Chansons (1955). Here it is, with no slight intended to Judy or Maudlin; some of the words and constructions are old-fashioned and liable to confuse even a native speaker if heard rather than seen. For the sake of easier layout, I'll give each couplet as a single line; each is repeated, as in the first verse, by way of refrain. Arrangements on record may well omit this repetition and condense two or more verses into one for the sake of brevity, which is what I used to do when I sang this song, though I didn't use the traditional tune. The translation is as exact as I can get without too much awkwardness.
LA BLANCHE BICHE
Celles qui vont au bois, c'est la mère et la fille.
Celles qui vont au bois, c'est la mère et la fille.
La Mère va chantant et la fille soupire:
"Qu'av'vous à soupirer, ma fille Marguerite?"
"J'ai bien grand ire en moi, et n'ose vous le dire:
Je suis fille le jour, et la nuit blanche biche.
La chasse est après moi, les barons et les princes,
Et mon frère Renaud, qui est encore bien pire.
Allez, ma mère, allez bien promptement lui dire
Qu'il arrête ses chiens jusqu'à demain ressie."
"Où sont tes chiens, Renaud, et ta chasse gentille?"
"Ils sont dedans le bois à courre blanche biche."
"Arrête-les, Renaud, arrête, je t'en prie!"
Trois fois les a cornés o son cornet de cuivre;
A la troisième fois, la blanche biche est prise;
"Mandons le dépouilleur, qu'il dépouille la biche."
Celui qui la dépouille dit: "Je ne sais qui dire:
Elle a les cheveux blonds et le sein d'une fille."
A tiré son couteau, en quartiers il l'a mise.
En ont fait un dîner, au baron et aux princes:
Nous voici tous illec, faut ma sœur Marguerite.
"Vous n'avez qu'à manger, suis la première assise:
Ma tête est dans le plat et mon cœur aux chevilles,
Mon sang est répandu par toute la cuisine,
Et sur vos noires charbons, mes pauvres os y grillent."
THE WHITE HART
Mother and daughter go to the woods.
The mother goes singing, the daughter sighing.
"Why do you sigh, Margaret, my daughter?"
"There is a great curse on me, and I dare not tell it you:
I am a girl by day, and a white hind by night.
The hunt is after me, the barons and the princes,
"And my brother Renaud, which is far worse.
Go, mother, go straight away and tell him
To stop his dogs until tomorrow noon."
"Where are your dogs, Renaud, and your noble hunt?"
"They are in the woods, pursuing the white hind."
"Stop them, Renaud, stop them, I beg you."
Three times he has sounded his copper horn:
At the third blast, the white hind is taken.
"Let us send for the skinner, to skin the hind."
The skinner says, "I don't know what to say:
She has blonde hair and a woman's breast."
He has taken his knife and quartered her.
They have made of her a dinner for the baron and the princes:
"Here we all are, save for my sister Margaret."
"You have only to eat; I am the first at table.
My head is in the dish, and my heart on the butcher's hook,
My blood is spattered throughout the kitchen,
And on your black coals my poor bones are grilling."
ressie: the midday siesta.
O: = avec
illec = ici
Davenson comments that the song had been found in the area between the Vendée and Eastern Normandy, and most particularly in the French-speaking part of Brittany. Only one version had been found with a melody at the time he wrote, and that, he added, was borrowed from a wedding-song, Sur le pont d'Anignon j'ai ouï chanter la belle, dating back at least to 1503.
A midi of the tune made from the notation in Davenson will doubtless find its way in due course to Mudcat Midis; until then, it can be heard via the South Riding Folk Network site: