This song, whose actual name is The Hawk and the Crow, apparently almost disappeared in the British Isles. There is only a single instance of the song being collected in the field which was by a joint team of a professional folklorist and a Northern Irish school teacher who collected the song from Liam O'Connor of Pomeroy in Country Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
However, the song was better preserved in the Appalachian region of the United States and was reported being well known there as The Bird Courting Song or The Leather Winged Bat.
One of the purposes of folksong is to pass on a word of advice. You will often hear British or Irish folk songs begin with the lyric “Come All of You” followed by the group of people the singer is addressing: young fellows, pretty young maidens, Bold Sportsmen, etc.
This song does not use that common phrase indicating counsel. Instead, the song, uses anthropomorphic talking birds, which conjure an entertaining and amusing image in the imagination; the talking birds communicate some bits of advice regarding courtship, as well as observations that love may possibly bring either permanent sorrow or great joy.
The late folk singer Kevin Mitchell renamed the song Two Strings on a Bow and sang it on his 1977 record album Free and Easy: Irish Traditional Songs and Ballads. The non-lexical vocables chorus which is common in both Irish and British folksong, in addition to producing a series of interesting sounds, serves to break up the action in the song and creates a sense of suspense on the part of the listener as to what will happen next. Mitchell states that he crafted the singing of this chorus to the tune of the bawdy sailor's hornpipe The Cuckoo's Nest, a musical sexual reference which adds a layer of complexity and humor to the performance of this song to those in the know.
Kevin Mitchell was from Derry in Northern Ireland but he moved to Glasgow, Scotland, in 1969 to work as an industrial painter. Prior to moving to Scotland, Mitchell spent his youth learning traditional Gaelic singing from local and Northern Irish traditional singers. Mitchell won Second Place at the Derry Feis [a traditional Gaelic arts and culture festival] and First Place at the Belfast Singing Competition. Mitchell appeared at folk festivals throughout Scotland and England and at international events. In 2001, Kevin Mitchell and his wife Ellen, who is also an award winning traditional singer from Scotland, recorded a Double CD of traditional British Isles songs on the Musical Traditions' label: Kevin and Ellen Mitchell: Have a Drop Mair. Kevin Mitchell passed away on December 22, 2022.
The late Kevin Mitchell, who was interviewed in 1988 by Fred McCormick, recounts:
It was purely nationalism when I was young. No history of traditional music in the family in Derry City, although on my mother's side there was a fair bit of singing, but not really what I'm particularly doing now. When I was young I was very interested in Irish culture, the language, Irish dancing; and one thing led to another. I learned Irish dancing, and if you get into a minibus and you're travelling from a feis, everybody sings - and I already had a name singing so it gradually developed from there until we came to the competition stage, which was later on. Anyway, what really made me sing was singing songs from my own wee bit of the country, which is County Derry and Donegal. Although Derry is historically part of Donegal, so we've got that kind of split personality, so when I talk about Donegal songs I'm really talking about local songs. The first song that took my fancy was Going to Mass Last Sunday just because it mentioned Derry, although in this case it's County Derry.
More about Kevin and Ellen Mitchell:
https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/mitchell.htm
Two Strings on a Bow
Lyrics
Said the hawk unto the crow one day,
“Why do you in mourning stay?”
“I was once in love and it didn't prove fact
And ever since I wear the black.”
Chorus (repeating each verse's second half):
Singing: Ski-the-diddle ri-the-diddle ri-the-diddley dum,
Singing: Ski-the-diddle ri-the-diddle ri-the-diddley dum,
I was once in love and I didn't prove fact
And ever since I wear the black.
And next there spoke the little brown thrush
Who was sitting in yon holly bush,
“The way to court I've heard them say
Is to court all night and sleep the next day.”
And the next hopped up was a Willie Wagtail,
“I was once in love and I did prevail,
I was once in love and I did prevail
And ever since I wag my tail.”
And the next hopped up was a Jeannie Wran (wren),
“Do you know what I'd do if I was a man?
For fear that one would wriggle and go
I would wear two strings upon my bow.”
