Horses
in a valley: detail from a Chinese scroll.
DW collection.
DW collection.
This
is a lullaby my mother, Martha Jordan, was sung as a baby in Ozark,
Alabama, before 1920 -- a lullaby that she sang to me, that I sang to my daughters and to my grandchildren. As happens with folksongs, it is a patchwork of other songs. The "pretty little horses" are found in innumerable variants, especially in Kentucky and Tennessee; the "ol' black birds" are found in the "Twa' Corbies"; and a North Carolina variant was collected by the Library of Congress in 1947 (A8). I have transcribed it with final consonants, but sometime she sang it with Ol' and singin' which is how I sang it three years ago at a Folklore Festival, and my preference -- it makes for a gentler sound.
* * * * * *
Go
to sleep, little baby,
Don't
the boogers gonna get you.
Ducks
in the pond,
The
geese are flying over
All
the pretty little horses
Way
down yonder in the valley.
Old
black birds
A'
picking out his eyes, [edited sometimes to "singing all the day"]
Poor
little thing cried "Mama!"
Mama
went away
And
told me to stay,
And
take good care of the baby.
When
she came back
She
brought a piece of pie
And
gave it every bit to the baby,
Way
down yonder in the valley.
