Beautiful song. Working through it as homework from my banjo lesson. Really interesting threads above… My take is that the narrator is a pregnant woman who’s been abandoned by her lover. She wants the pregnancy to be over and the man to take responsibility for the child. Which he won’t, so she wishes she was dead because of her shame and grim prospects as a single mother. Ravens and owls are bad omens. She would prefer that she and her lover were both dead because that’s the only way they can be together. But she wants the baby to be born so he/she will at least have a chance. It’s very sad but beautiful to play.