The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #21937   Message #932180
Posted By: Celtaddict
13-Apr-03 - 01:07 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req/Add: Baloo Balleerie
Subject: ADD: Baloo Balleerie^^
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.

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