I just read this article. It's only a couple of pages long, but an interesting read.

Thomas Ravenscroft and The Three Ravens: A Ballad Under the Microscope,
by Arthur Knevett

Knevett's conclusion is:

"Thomas Ravenscroft's collection of catches, rounds, street cries and songs in Melismata published in 1611 provides us with the earliest known version of the ballad The Three Ravens. It is generally accepted by folk song scholars such as Bronson, Gilchrist and Fuller Maitland that the ballad is an earlier secular antecedent of the carol 'Corpus Christi' found in an early sixteenth century manuscript some of which may have been written or compiled before 1504. This suggests that The Three Ravens may well have originated sometime in the fifteenth century and was English. Vernon V Chatman's article, 'The Three Ravens Explicated', to be found in the journal Midwest Folklore, endeavours to show that the ballad was Irish in origin and dates back to the twelfth century. To do so he has used folk tales and the rules of grammar to give unfounded meaning to some of the text, particularly the refrain; consequently his argument is sheer conjecture. There is no evidence available to suggest that the ballad is Irish or has an earlier date of origin than the fifteenth century."


I said in an earlier post that the story told in the song reminds me of the literature I read while studying Old English/Anglo Saxon language, but I'm more closely reminded of the Middle English literary pieces, especially the fantasy type stories, poems and songs.

I suspect that the description of the man as a "knight" possibly places the time frame within the middle ages more than the Anglo-Saxon era, especially because of the hounds, hawks and shield but I'm only speculating and the lyrics could have evolved from an earlier song, and the language could have been updated with those changes.

A statement in Knevett's article about the possible time-frame of the original Three Ravens song:

"Francis James Child noted in volume 4 of the The English and Scottish Popular Ballads that a tune entitled 'Ther wer three ravens' was included in; '... a MS Lute-Book ... which contained airs 'noted and collected by Robert Gordon at Aberdeen in the year of our Lord 1627' "

I'm guessing we'll never know when it was created, but I love it. It's one of my favourite songs that I learned at school.