LL-L 'Songs' 2006.07.25 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 25 July 2006 * Volume 02
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From: 'Global Moose Translations' <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Morphology' 2006.07.24 (08) [A/E]

Marcel wrote:
>Lig niet aan de rand (van het bed!), een grijsje wolfje zal komen en je
zij bijten.
>
>Bijzonder, hè? Ik denk dat veel Russische kindertjes niet in slaap konden
vallen
>vanwege de inhoud van dit kinderliedje. Chto ty dumaesh'?

Reminds me of Brahms' famous lullaby:

"Guten Abend, gute Nacht,
mit Rosen bedacht,
mit Näglein besteckt,
schlupf unter die Deck."

Of course this is an old-fashioned way of saying "mit Nelken bestickt", i.e.
embroidred with carnations, but when I was little the thought of sending the
child to lie on a bed of nails, with thorny roses added, always struck me as
very frightening and sadistic, similar to the infamous barrel from Grimm's
fairy tales with nails on the inside...

And then it goes on:

"Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt". Tomorrow morning, if
God so pleases, you will wake again... WHAT? And what if he's not in the
mood? I am definitely not going to sleep!

English lullabies are just as bad:

"Hush a-bye baby in the tree-top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down will come cradle, baby and all."

Now there's a scary thought...

and even worse:
"If I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take." Help!!
There's a good chance I'm going to die in my sleep!! And I am taking this
risk every single night when i go to bed!!!

Gabriele Kahn

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Songs

Well, Gabriele, on the serious side, many of the lullabies of olden times deal
with then rampant child mortality.  While we have SIDS (sudden infant death
syndrome) now, this was just one of many threats then; you could never be
remotely sure your child would be alive the next morning.  In fact, my father,
growing up in abject poverty, slept in one bed with several siblings, and one
morning he woke up next to his dead younger brother ...  That wasn't anything
terribly unusual in those days, and mothers' fears were often expressed
indirectly in their lullabies.

I had copied the Yiddish song yesterday but later realized that it contained
mistakes.  Here's the version with my corrections:

   Mayn kind, mayn troyst,
   Du forst avek ibern vaytn yamen.
   Oy, mayn kind, šrayb gešvind
   A brivele der mamen, a brivele der mamen!

   My child, my solace,
   You're going away across the vast sea.
   Oh, my child, do write soon
   A letter to mother/mom, a letter to mother/mom! 

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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