Hello)
I am not from Norway, however, I have recently found interest in Norwegian music, and have started exploring it. I found a song which I really liked from the album “Langt Nord I Skogen”, on which I started doing a project for my academic music course. The song is called “Det Var Ei Gammal Kjerring”.
Here’s the link for it:
[https://open.spotify.com/track/7pTmytYkDTeL9OEatTmULi?si=2fbe3c8cfe9a4465](https://open.spotify.com/track/7pTmytYkDTeL9OEatTmULi?si=2fbe3c8cfe9a4465)
or:
[https://youtu.be/-XSARecuAiw](https://youtu.be/-XSARecuAiw)
I tried searching for the meaning of the song, as well as the lyrics, however, I could find neither.
Could someone who knows Norwegian please tell me what the song is about, as well as, if possible write me the lyrics for it? It shouldn’t take much time.
I would appreciate it very much!
Thank you))))
2 comments
Found lyrics for a version (not the same dialect as the one you posted):
Det var ein gong ei kona som ingen ungar hadde. Så tok ho vesle folen sin og ha i vogga lagde.
Og så song ho:
So, ro, langbeina, breilenda, storskanka. Lever du til våren,
Så blir du nok til folk
It’s about an old woman who has no kids. So she puts a foal in a crib, sings a lullaby and hopes he will become human if he lives until the spring.
It’s not in my native dialect, so there may be some context lost, and I couldn’t quite pick up the lyrics in the middle there, but it’s about an old woman/crone “kjerring,” who doesn’t have any children. She swaddles a horse foal in a crib and sings a short lullaby about how it’ll be a human/a person if it survives until fall. Some quick googling tells me the ditty is also known as Folungen (The foal child), and at times features an additional line about how this foal child will go out to get drunk like his father. One example with the lyrics can be found here: [http://www.roskva.no/olaf2003/sangskatt_melodi_10.html](http://www.roskva.no/olaf2003/sangskatt_melodi_10.html) , although the wording does differ a bit from the version you posted.