Well- I see that you are apparently the ONLY other human being on the planet who had asked the same questions as I - I only just saw the Gogol series and was also both enchanted and perplexed by the partial recitation. Since there are no references that I could find either, with ANY search tools, and having read the translations of the play segment "the Drowned Maiden" - I must conclude that this was a creation by the script writers; there IS a "Raven Game" in which children in a circle, holding hands tightly, surround the one who is the raven, and the raven tries to rush forward and pull away one child at a time. It is supposed to represent a mean raven trying to take baby chicks form the nest of a chicken, presumably to eat them! But there is not a rhyme or song like the one done in the TV show. Sp - creative works, the only thing I can imagine- and we will never know what the rest of the song would be, since the show writers did not complete it! Frustrating, but, c'est la vie, eh?