It's interesting to note that "Twa Corbies" is a variation off of an English Nursery Rhyme, "The Three Ravens". In the British version the three ravens holds the same discussion witnessing the same dead body. Yet in the British version, the master's hound protects the body from any ground scavengers, while the hawk protects it from the air, and the doe in the forest cleans and buries the body with the deepest of respect. In the British version, there is a sense of reverence and honor for the slain knight. This is certainly not the case in the Sottish "Twa Corbies", where the dog has left, and the hawk has flown, and the doe has taken "another level." This vision of the slain knight is a rather cruel and desolate view of death. The presentation of the images of death are through the raven's point of view as seeing life as a scavenger. In the fourth stanza, the two birds talk about how they will desecrate the corpse to get what they want from it. Again, because there is a stunning lack of respect for the dead knight, the birds say that they "can mak our dinner sweet." The poet ends with stressing how the body will decay and only the bones will remain. Obviously, the poet is making a statement on death and dying. It seems that human beings, according to the poem, endure two deaths: The first one is the death of the body, and the second one is the death of one's dignity when one does not have anyone to provide care and protection from "the scavengers" that walk amongst us. It is very interesting to contrast the Scottish Ballad with the British version because both give an opposite picture of the view of the dead and the respect for them.