"The Twa Corbies"
In all the fairy stories, when the hero is magically gifted with an understanding of the speech of birds, it actually does him some good. A robin brings him a message from his true love, or a bluebird tells him about buried treasure, or a starling warns him of a traitor among his companions. It doesn't really work that way, though -- not in real life. Birds mostly talk about seeds and worms and the breeze and nest-building and the state of their eggs. I should know; I've been listening to them for seven years.
In all that time, they've only ever said one thing that interested me, and that one almost got me killed.
This was the first ballad I ever tackled retelling (it was written before "Sovay"). It posed a bit of a challenge: I love the song, but how do you make a story out of some ravens talking about their dinner? The motif in folklore of understanding the language of birds gave me one element, and the lyrics of the ballad, viewed in the right light, provided another.
You can read the story in issue #31 of Talebones, which may be ordered online, either as a single issue or as part of a subscription to this fine magazine. To give you a sense of what the rest of the issue is like, you can read Michael Fay's review at Tangent Online, though be warned that there are some plot spoilers, including for this story. He had this (non-spoilery) to say about "The Twa Corbies":
I enjoyed Brennan's characterization of a narrator who regrets the choices he made that enabled him to understand birds. The author's experience as a folklorist allows her to give this story extra verisimilitude. While I haven't heard the ballad this story is based on, I have heard many similar pieces in the Celtic tradition, and "The Twa Corbies" does a good job of capturing the feel of those.
My music for writing it, was, of course, a recording of the ballad. I think I have three or four different ones at this point, but at the time, the only one I had on CD (hence the only one that could conveniently be put on repeat) was Steeleye Span's. A version of the lyrics is below. Have fun with the dialect.
"The Twa Corbies"
As I was walking all alaneI heard twa corbies makin' mane
And t'ane untae the t'other did say-oh
Where shall we gang and dine the day-oh
Where shall we gang and dine the day
In behind yon auld fail dyke
I wot there lies a new-slain knight
And naebody kens that he lies there-oh
But his hawk and hound and his lady fair-oh
His hawk and hound and his lady fair
His hound is tae the hunting gane
His hawk tae fetch the wild fowl hame
His lady's taen another mate-oh
So we may make our dinner sweet-oh
We may make our dinner sweet
Ye'll sit on his white haus-bane
And I'll pike out his bonny blue e'en
With many a lock of his golden hair-oh
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare-oh
We'll theek our nest when it grows bare
Many a one for him makes mane
But naen shall ken where he has gane
O'er his white bones when they are bare-oh
The wind shall blow forever mair-oh
The wind shall blow forever mair