Lyr Req/Add: Baloo Balleerie

Subject: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Megan L
Date: 28 May 00 - 03:04 PM

Can anyone help with lyrics for a lulaby, I used to sing it for my youngest niece (now in her mid 30's) I think it was a Shetland song and I probably learned it from a Shirley and Larry Peterson record.

As I can remember it ran

Another one she often fell asleep to was about a pet rabbit

lyrics to either would help

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Pene Azul
Date: 28 May 00 - 04:30 PM

I can't find lyrics (still trying), but here is a MIDI (click) found on this page (click).

PA

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Megan L
Date: 28 May 00 - 04:33 PM

Thanks Pene

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 May 00 - 04:39 PM

I found some of it, anyway, at:  Faery Frolics

Gone away peerie faeries,
Down come the bonnie angels,
Sleep safe, my baby.
Away be to Bugaloos,
Smoke shrouds the inner room,
Sleep safe, my baby.
Smoor the peat fire,
Gone away peerie faeries,
Sleep safe, my baby.
Gone away peerie faeries,
Gone away, night stealers,
Sleep safe, my baby.

Malcolm

Subject: ADD: Baloo Balleerie^^
From: Celtaddict
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 01:07 AM

I learned it as a child in the 50s.

BALLOO BALEERIE

Gang awa' peerie faeries,
Gang awa' peerie faeries,
Gang awa' peerie faeries,
Frae oor ben noo.

Baloo, baleerie, baloo, baleerie,
Baloo, baleerie, baloo, balee.

Doon come bonnie angels,
Doon come bonnie angels,
Doon come bonnie angels,
Tae oor ben noo.

Sleep saft, my bairnie,
Sleep saft, my bairnie,
Sleep saft, my bairnie,
In oor ben noo.^^

"Peerie" means small. A "ben" is a small inner room or enclosure. The "fairies" here would be mysterious, probably mischief causing "little people."
So in modern English this is "Go away, little gremlins, from our room. Come down, fair angels, to our room. Sleep softly, my baby, in our room."
I suspect the chorus is corrupted from a Gaelic or braid Scots phrase but may be simply lilting.

It has appeared at least once in an American collection, The Readers' Digest Book of Folk Songs, in the 60s. I don't have William Cole handy but he might have included it in "Folk Songs of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales."

Gordon Bok sings it to the tune I learned, though without the last verse, and with one in Gaelic, on his recent album, "Dear to Our Island." (Timberhead Music, at . He refers to it as the "Bressay Lullaby" for where it was collected, and believes it to be extremely old. He is the scholar. He said once he thought it might be the oldest song he knows and may go back as far as the 11th or 12th century. I asked him why he thought it was that old, and he said it was based on the overlapping of pagan and Christian thought. In my experience, in both Ireland and Scotland, particularly in rural areas, the pagan and Christian traditions still overlap on a regular basis.

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 01:09 AM

The lines Malcolm found might well be used individually to make many soothing verses for a fretful child.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 02:49 AM

You're right, Celtaddict - it's on page 140 of Cole, and the lyrics you posted are almost exactly what's in Cole.
Cole says "Sleep soft, my baby," but I like "bairnie" better. I transcribed the tune from Cole.
One thing, though - I can't find it on Bok's Dear to Our Island. What is the name and number of the track? I do find a track with that name on the Alan Lomax Collection CD, World Library of Folk & Primitive Music (Scotland). I'm confused. I have all of Bok's CD's and can't find this song.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: ADD: Bressay Lullaby
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 04:02 AM

Ah, here it is - it's on Bok's In the Kind Land (1999), called "The Bressay Lullaby." The tune isn't exactly what I transcribed from Cole, but it's close.
-Joe Offer-

---

BRESSAY LULLABY

Baloo balilly, Baloo balilly, Baloo
balilli, baloo ba

Gae awa peerie fairies (3)
Fae oor bairn noo.

Dan come boannie angels (3)
Ta wir peerie bairn.

Dey'll sheen ower da cradle (3)
O wir peerie bairn.

Bok's CD booklet took the lyrics from Norman Buchan's 101 Scottish Songs (1962)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 07:56 AM

Norman Buchan's note to "The Bressay Lullaby":

The Shetland Folk Book, vol. 1
Noted down by Mrs. E.J. Smith, Sandness, Shetland from her mother's singing.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 08:08 AM

From notes to Alan Lomax's World Library Of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. 3: Scotland:

                   Bressay Lullabye
Sung by Elizabet Barclay. Recorded by the BBC.

The Shetlands owe much of their folkways to the Norsemen for, until four centuries ago, these islands formed part of the kingdom of Norway. The "Bressay Lullabye," first printed in the early 1900's, is one of the best known and loved Shetland tunes.

Ba-loo, ba-lili, (3)
Ba-loo, oo-ba.
Den come the bonnie angels, (3)
Tae wir bairn noo,
Ba-loo,...etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 08:24 AM

"Bressay Lullaby" is sung by Lynn Morrison on Cave of Gold - Celtic Lullabies, which can be heard HERE.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Baloo Balleerie?
From: Celtaddict
Date: 13 Apr 03 - 04:08 PM

Sorry, Joe, I did not actually look at my Bok CDs, but of course the Connemara Cradle Song is the lullabye on Dear to Our Island. It is interesting that the last verse he transcribed as English; "dey'll sheen ower da cradle" (they'll shine?) sounds more southern mountains US to me. There is a Gaelic phrase that includes something that sounds rather like "dalsheena" that has something to do with safe-and-sound, though my Gaelic spelling is hopeless; I supposed this was what he sang. I wonder if it was corrupted from that? I have not seen that verse in these other sources.
The Reader's Digest publication was called "The Fireside Book of Folk Songs" and I still see it in used book stores from time to time. Not as scholarly as Cole and others but a lovely source of songs, with bits of history of all.
"Ben" rolls right into "noo." It is interesting to hear how just singing the rolling "bairn" instead changes the melody with it.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 06:00 PM

Being from Bressay in Shetland, I dont think that Gaelic language would have been part of this song, Norse perhaps, not sure either of any Celtic connection!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Megan L
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 05:11 PM

Most likely connection the old Norn

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 07:51 PM

"Bairn" makes sense, "ben" doesn't. It means "within".

I know nothing about Bok, but somebody who expects to find a Gaelic song in Shetland and claims it goes back 1000 years is not my idea of a "scholar".

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Effsee
Date: 12 Mar 07 - 09:30 PM

""dey'll sheen ower da cradle"...if that's not Shetland talk, I don't know what is!

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 03:50 AM

Karine Polwart does a lovely version...she taught it at a workshop at Cambridge a couple of years ago.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Megan L
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 05:05 AM

wow i didn't realise this had been revivied I heard Shirley And Larry Peterson sing this many years ago (A Shetland father /daughter duo.) They sang Baby but it was pronounced BAB - i(short i as in caltic)

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 07:51 AM

Karine Polwart does a lovely version...she taught it at a workshop at Cambridge a couple of years ago

Yes, Ruth, I agree it is very nice, but Karine's song is called "Baleerie Baloo" and isn't the same as the traditional one above.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 08:55 AM

Scrump, I'm not referring to the one on her CD - this was a different song that she did for the workshop, along with a few other songs that I don't think she's recorded. It definitely had the lines about the "peerie fairies" in it...

The one on her CD is quite haunting, whereas this was a sweet, gentle lullaby. She also talked about the whole lullaby genre in the workshop.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 09:27 AM

Sorry I misunderstood, Ruth. Apologies for jumping to conclusions! I've always assumed her song was at least inspired by the lullaby anyway.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 09:38 AM

'sokay! I think you must be right - she seems to have a bit of a fondness for lullabies.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Mar 07 - 09:41 AM

Well she'll be needing them in a few months' time :-)

Subject: Lyr Add: A BRESSAY CRADLE-SONG
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 04:58 PM

This text can be found in Dae Ye Min' Langsyne? A Pot-Pourri of Games, Rhymes, and Ploys of Scottish Childhood by Amy Stewart Fraser, 1975. It is called a "Bressay cradle-song":

Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo,
Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo,
Gae awa' peerie fairies
Fae wir peerie bairn.

Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo,
Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo,
Dan come bonnie angels
Ta wir peeire bairn.

Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo,
Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo,
Dey'll sheen ower da cradle
O' wir peerie bairn.
Baloo, balilo, baloo, balilo.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 19 Nov 07 - 11:30 AM

Doesn't "sheen" mean "watch" in this dialect?

I believe Gordon's version comes from (or came through at one point) Isla Cameron, who sings an almost identical version.

This was the first song I ever sang to my son - within an hour of his birth. For several months, it was his favorite lullaby.

Dan

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 20 Nov 07 - 04:01 AM

As said above, like many another widely sung version of a trad Scots song, this one was spread because of Norman Buchan's printing.
I have transcribed the tune for my new Doh Ray Me book,plus many more Baloos - Scots word for lullaby. Sheen means shine - angels emit light.

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: GUEST,chooly
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 03:47 PM

Here's Larry Peterson's Lullaby words. only got them cause my daughter is learning it at the nursery here in shetland.


da rabbits lullaby

CHORUS:
Hushie-baa, fluffy, Hushie-baa-baa. Du's da best rabbit at ever I saa.

VERSE 1
Da nicht is dat calld; Du sanna geng furt. Come here an A'll take dee up i my skurt.
CHORUS

VERSE 2
I kyin at du laeks da aald taatit-rug. An dere du sall lie sae warm an sae snug.
CHORUS

VERSE 3
Da kye an da hens is aa ida byre. An du sall sleep here at da side o da fire.
CHORUS

VERSE 4
Sae close du dy een, an faa du asleep. Da moarn du sall get a piece o a neep.
CHORUS

Subject: RE: Req/ADD: Baloo Balleerie
From: Jim Lad
Date: 21 Nov 07 - 05:40 PM

Thank yous. I'll learn this one.