Just thought I'd correct a mistake I'd unknowingly made in an earlier post.

It's true that Scott published the "Twa Corbies" but he did, indeed, get it from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. I've been reading Sharpe's letters, published by Allardyce (1888) and the letter to Scott is there. Sharpe was quite happy, himself, to tidy up old ballads (and did so with a few others for Scott's books) so it could have been him rather than Scott who made the changes. Sharpe claimed to have got it from an aristocratic friend, but I'm looking at him more closely these days as he was clearly taking stuff from Allan Cunningham for publication (one letter survives from AC in Allardyce).

Scott's reply is also there, in which he says that the song is rather like the English ballad of "The Three Ravens" in Ritson, but with the end missing.

Cheers!
Ian