La Mare de Déu
Júlia wrote about this lullaby: "It's well known, my mother would sing it to me, as my grandma would sing it to her… actually if you ask the Catalans many of them will say that the lullaby they best remember is La mare de Déu".
La Mare de Déu
The Virgin Mary
Lullaby
Lullaby
(Catalan)
(English)
La Mare de Déu
quan era xiqueta
anava a costura*
a aprendre de lletra
Duia un cistellet
amb quatre pometes
i un bocí de pa
també avellanetes
The Virgin Mary
When she was a child
Would go to school
To learn how to write.
She would bring a little basket
With four small apples
And a piece of bread,
Also little almonds.
Notes
Another Version:
La Mare de Déu
quan era xiqueta
anava a costura*
a aprendre de lletra
Amb** un cistellet
hi duia pometes
i un bocí de pa
també avellanetes
English Translation:
The Virgin Mary
When she was a child
Would go to school
To learn how to write.
In a little basket,
She had small apples
And a piece of bread
Also little almonds.
*"Costura is the old way to say it." -Júlia
**"Amb should be en (in), but in many places it's pronounced the same way." -Júlia
*****
Júlia also wrote that this lullaby is best known in the Tarragona area and that it's very common to say La mare de Déu (God's mother) to mean Virgin Mary in Catalan.
Thanks and Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Júlia Bañeres for contributing this song, for its translation into Spanish and the sheet music. Thanks to Monique Palomares for the midi tune.
Image: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1897
Moltes gràcies
