Regarded as a Czech mountain holler; sung by The Pennywhistlers on their first album for Nonesuch H72007, in 1965 : "Folksongs of Eastern Europe"; taught by both Ethel Raim (USA) and Frankie Armstrong (UK); esp in Frankie's many Voice Workshops around the globe over the years.

A Czech friend said she thought the language was not "standard Czech", but either Slovak or Moravian or one of the "old" mountain dialects.
However, she roughly translated it something like :
"Hello, Hello, little one. How are they grazing for you?
And you are such a pretty little girl - Hello, Hello!"
(ah, the old pick-up lines are the same all over the world, eh!!!)

The words (as given by The Pennywhistlers) for Pastevecke "Helokanie" are :

Ja helo, helo, Malenka
Jako sa tebe pasu?
A ty se velech panenka
Ja helo, helo!

Of course, there is an accent over the last "e" in "pastevecke" and a circumflex(?) thingy over the "s" in "se" - I don't know how to add these things correctly :~)

A great song to belt out, once you've learnt to "open up" and sing from the belly!!! LOL


Cheers! R-J
(Down Under)