Page:Japanese Peasant Songs.djvu/108

Little Boy

107

Bōya wa yoi ko da Nenne shina[1] Are mi ohisama Nenne sh’ta Kaka kara suzume ni Chuchu suzume Isshoni neburoto[2] Tondeta

Little baby boy, good child Go to sleep. Look! the sun Has gone to sleep. Kaka kara sparrows And chuchu sparrows To go to sleep together Were flying.

Little Boy’s Nurse

This is an old and fairly widely known lullaby in Japan. Bonneau records it in his Folklore japonais, Vol. 3, No. 56, as a Kyūshū song while Lafcadio Hearn claims it for Izumo in his essay, “Songs of Japanese Children,” in A Japanese Miscellany. Both versions differ somewhat from the one given here; the ending of Hearn is more like this song than the one recorded by Bonneau.

108

Nenne nen yo Okorori yo Bōya no omori wa Doko ni itta Ano yama koete Sato e itta Sato no miyagi[3] ni Nani murota[4] Den den taiko ni Shō no fue Okiagari-kobushi ni Inuhariko

Go to sleep Rock a bye. Little boy’s nurse Where did she go? Over that mountain She went to her birthplace. From her birthplace what gifts Did she bring? A rub a dub drum, A trumpet, A toy daruma[5] And a paper dog.

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1. The opening two lines found in lullabies of various regions of Japan.
2. For: nemuroto.
3. For: miyage.
4. For: morota.
5. A tumbler. The word comes from Boddhi Dharma, a Buddist Saint (sixth century A.D.).