This is a beautiful vintage collection of international lullabies collected by R. G. Carter, with illustrations by Anna Dzierżek, one of my favourite children's book illustrators.
Cover, front and back matter
The cover of this book presents pastel sun and sky colours, with a white paper frieze, and a full colour rendition of what is simplified in the endpapers – girl-boy-girl-boy representatives of different cultures in folk dress, holding hands, as though in dance.
The back cover features a young boy in folk dress, playing a lute or mandolin tied with bright ribbons. His image appears inside the circles and inside a diamond-shaped paper cutout.
I love the endpapers of this book, which are a cheerful yellow colour. Along the top and bottom runs a symmetrical decorative folk art border or stencil motif that is likely modelled after Polish Wycinanki (one form of popular Eastern European floral paper cutting). The stylised botanical leaves, geometric stars and hearts are often used in European folk patterns. Along the centre are paper cut-out silhouettes of boys and girls holding hands, shaded in orange.
On the other side of the front loose endpaper is an introduction, acknowledgements, and publication information, followed by the title page. The two pages work as a double page spread, bordered by a similar decorative border pattern, this one in orange, inverted on each side.
It's quite unusual publication for a World Distributors publication to have an introduction and acknowledgements. Authors and illustrators are often unattributed in World Distributors books, and sources are rarely mentioned. The difference, here, might be due to the compiler, R. G. Carter, who, it is explained, is a "Principal Lecturer in Music, Poulton le Fylde College, Lancashire (former music adviser to Cheshire and Cambridge)". The title page lists the compiler and illustrator and also provides a contents list.
The lullabies appear in alphabetical order by country until France and then perhaps Germany and Norway appeared in the wrong order. Wales appears after Scotland on a double page spread perhaps because both are part of the UK and the images align. After that we return to S countries, although Spain comes after Sweden, so I'm not really sure what was intended, but it is mostly alphabetical!
Lullabies – R. G. Carter
R. G. Carter presents 21 lullabies from 13 European countries in this collection. A lullaby is a song intended to lull children to sleep, but I'm not sure that the songs in this collection are really of that ilk. Many are hymns. In fact, of the 21 lullabies, all are religious in nature (referring to Jesus, God/Lord, Heaven, Bethlehem, angels, or saints), with only one exception (Germany's "Hush! Hush!").
In the introduction, Carter describes the collected songs as standing the test of time, or expected to do so. I don't know enough about religious hymns and European lullabies to know if this has come to pass. I recognised one song – England's "I saw three ships" – and one lullaby I was familiar with only as a nursery rhyme – Germany's "Sleep, Baby, Sleep". The only other lullaby I recognised was Scotland's "The Lord is My Shepherd", which I knew only as a psalm.
As shown above, each lullaby in this collection is presented with the first verse displayed within a musical score, and following verses written beneath or on the next page.
The acknowledgements in the front matter show that Carter received help from many quarters with the selections and translations, including cultural institutes, embassies, and publishers.
The selection is as follows. (The capitalisation and spelling below is as represented in the book).
- Austria
- "Tyrolean Cradle Song" (3 verses) [Tyrol/E. J. Falconer]
- Belgium
- "Thank You, Jesus" (3 verses) [Remi Ghesquiere/R.G.C]
- "Before School" (2 verses) [Remi Ghesquiere/R.G.C]
- Czechoslovakia
- "Under Bethlehem's Star" (5 verses) [Czech Traditional/M.C. Vojáček]
- Denmark
- "I am Jesu's little friend" (3 verses) [Frances J. Crosby]
- England
- "I saw three ships" (6 verses) [English traditional]
- "Jesus, tender shepherd" (2 verses + repeat verse 1) [English traditional/M. Duncan]
- France
- "Jesus, may I be like you" (1 verse) [Mediaeval French]
- "Jesus' Hands were kind Hands" (2 verses) [Au Clair de la Lune (Ancient French)/Margaret Cropper]
- Norway
- "Praise the Lord" (1 verse)
- "Gentle Jesus" (1 verse)
- Germany
- "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" (3 verses)
- "Hush! Hush!" (2 verses)
- Poland
- "A voice from Heaven" (2 verses) [Polish Hymn Book]
- "Jesus' Birthday" [Polish Hymn Book]
- Scotland
- "The Lord is my Shepherd" (5 verses) [Crimond]
- Wales
- "Welsh Lullaby" (3 verses) [Welsh Traditional]
- Sweden
- "Mary's Baby Son" (2 verses) [Swedish Hymn Book]
- "Jesus, our Brother" (2 verses) [Swedish Hymn Book]
- Spain
- "Jesus' Mother" (2 verses) [Mediaeval/R.G.C.]
- "Saint Anthony and the birds" (2 verses) [Words adapted from "San Antonio y los Pajoritos"]
Illustrations – Anna Dzierżek
I am a fan of Anna Dzierżek's children's book illustrations, so I was delighted to find this little-known gem containing her artwork.
The book is beautifully displayed. Recognisable landmarks appear with some country's lullabies and Dzierżek has drawn figures in national costume and/or engaged in play or at rest. The initial capital letters of many of the country's names are also decorated with leaves or flowers. Most countries have a double-page spread, except for Scotland and Wales, which each appear on a single page.
Landmarks
Belgium features an image of the Rosenhoedkaai (Quay of the Rosary) in Bruges, with the iconic Belfry of Bruges rising in the background and the famous resident swans of Bruges gliding through the water.
Denmark shows a group of children standing around Danish sculptor Herman Wilhem Bissen's plaster model of Hans Christian Andersen, now in the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense, Denmark. (The model was never transformed into a sculpture because Andersen rejected it – he didn't want to be depicted with children at his feet, partly because he felt strongly that his stories were for all ages; a different sculptor's work was chosen for the public monument in The King's Garden in Copenhagen, but this plaster model has persevered as an iconic image regardless).
France features a depiction of the "Angel with Censer", one of the many stained glass windows at Chartres Cathedral, and Germany features a painting of Pfalzgrafenstein Castle (Die Pfalz) on Falkenau Island in the Rhine.
People
Dzierżek's illustrations show children, with the occasional adult, in national costume or heritage dress, in play and at rest. Austrian children wearing dirndls and lederhosen gather around a baby in a wooden cradle, alongside a mother figure wearing schecken (snail bun) braided hair. Czechoslovakian children (several in recognisable kroj –folk costume of the Czechs and Slovakians) sit in a field with geese, a dog, and a goat, making flower garlands, playing a flute, and reading. Norwegian children (the boy wearing a patterned woollen sweater and knit hat, the girl a Hardangerbudad kyse (hat) and traditional dress) picnic with their dog on the banks of a fjord – and so on.
Swedish girls wear candles on a leaf wreath atop their heads, in the Lucia tradition; Polish children carry a large, handmade star on a pole as part of the kolędowanie tradition; German children carry a wreath on a stick, decorated with long, colourful ribbons, perhaps a mini-Maibuam (Maypole).
Of interest, the Spanish page, spotlighting the lullaby "Jesus's Mother" shows several girls in flounced skirts – and a Mary whose unexpectedly golden hair shines with luminous light.
Initial capital decorations
I suspect the flowers or leaves decorating initial capital letters have significance to the countries in question, but I haven't been able to identify how so for most of these. Scotland and Wales were easy, with a thistle and a daffodil, but for many of the others the leaves and flowers (and their potential cultural significance) are not so easy to identify.
Norway has oak leaves, Sweden has spruce, Spain appears to have clover (who knew it was first domesticated there?). Austria and Poland both have green leaves that might be ivy, Czechoslovakia has bright, multicoloured flowers that I can't identify as having any cultural significance, Denmark has a fawn-coloured twining plant that may be willow leaves, but I've no clue what the yellow leaves and flowers twining around the E for England might be! It may well be that these are just stylised plants with no cultural significance.
Of note, the first page for Austria has a large swathe of edelweiss on the page below the lullaby, much like the plant illustrations Scotland and Wales above.
Summary and availability
Although the title of this book is Lullabies From Many Lands, it may be helpful to note that it is not an international collection – the 'many lands' are only a selection within Europe.
The intended audience of this collection is uncertain to me – would parents be expected to read the musical scores and sing the songs while the children sit with them, admiring the illustrations? Would the book be intended to sit on a family piano music stand/desk for a sing-a-long? Or was it more likely to be bought and used by schoolteachers for use in the classroom?
This uncertainty could be why the book, perhaps, might not have been the hit expected. The Acknowledgements state: "Every effort has been made to trace owners of copyright. Any possible omissions will be rectified in future editions on receipt of information."
As far as I can tell, there were no further editions, and searching for this book on the internet yields only one lonely result – a single secondhand copy available through Amazon. I picked my copy up from a secondhand bookstore, so no doubt there are other copies about, but this collection doesn't seem to have survived so well as many other more prolific vintage children's books.