We recorded a song on our last album called "The Two Ravens". I don't know if it is the one you are talking about or not. We found it in a book that I think said the song was collected in West Virginia. It is definitely related to "The Three Ravens" from the 1611 Ravenscroft collection and to "Twa Corbies" from Scotland (from Minstelsy of the Scottish Border, 1803). In our version, like the Scottish version, the "hero" wasn't the lucky man portrayed in the Three Ravens -- his hounds and hawks and lady all run off as soon as he is dead. A couple of verses are given over to strangely poetic descriptions of the ravens ripping his body apart and the world of nature going on around his rotting corpse. With more detail and more eerie beauty than "Twa Corbies". It obviously had roots in Scotland, as the melody that came with it is "Ye Bonnie Banks and Braes", a well-known Scottish tune.

My wife recently wrote a southern American sounding version called "Over the Mountain". We sometimes do three versions of the same song in the same concert . Of course, they all have different melodies and different sets of lyrics. But it gives us an opportunity to talk about the evolution of folk songs and the oral tradition and all that.

John