Lullaby

The lullaby is a song by which a child is soothed to sleep; one of the most ancient and intimate genres of family lyric. The lullaby is marked by a quiet, monotonous tune, a simplified rhythm in time with the rocking of the cradle, diminutive forms, and characteristic refrain-images — the cat ('little gray cat'), sleep and drowsiness, doves that bring sleep. Originally the lullaby had a protective, magical function — to shield the infant from evil forces. In the songs the mother's dreams about her child's fate echo, and occasionally anxiety and longing. Ukrainian lullabies were collected and studied by Klyment Kvitka and Hnat Tantsiura. The image of the maternal lullaby became a recurring one in literature: Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, and Pavlo Tychyna turned to it; according to one account, the Ukrainian folk lullaby 'Oh, Sleep Wanders by the Windows' inspired George Gershwin's 'Summertime.'