Themes of Death and Violence in Lullabies of Different Countries

Abstract

Lullabies are often divided into mourning songs describing the death or funeral of the child and threat songs which threaten the child with violence if he does not go to sleep. Threat songs are considerably more common then lullabies with death themes; according to results of the present survey, the former were found in many parts of the world. Lullabies with death themes are frequent in Finno-Ugric and Slavic cultures but not in most others. The survey covered twenty-six countries as well as certain ethnic groups.