This traditional folk song is originally a Flemish 16th century song. It later wandered over to Germany - Northern Germany shared a lot of traditional culture with its western and northern neighbours, especially in the area of music. If you know Low German, you know that it is not very different from Dutch or Flemish. Another fun fact: Both northern English and Scottish English are comparatively easy to understand from a north German point of view, and so is 17th century English. Because all of them did not go through some changes that made standard English into what it is today.
But back to the little white bird.
This song may be about the marriage regret of a girl who gave in to a man’s pursuit at too young an age. But more likely, it is about forced marriage.
The white bird is a dove - symbol of love, of the purity and innocence of a young girl‘s soul, and also of death. The words of this old folk song hint at all three, with the first being the most obvious. The „dark forest“ points to the other two, though.
The song is known to connoisseurs of Romantic music, since Johannes Brahms set to music a text version that was written by A.W.v. Zuccslmaglio, but he „flattened“ it- it is simply a love song in his version as he cut off the last two verses and replaced the original, melancholy depiction of a lute‘s sound „din don deine, din don don“ with the cheery „at Maytime on the green meadow“.
This is one of the saddest traditional songs I know, certainly the saddest love song. How weary and helpless the young woman sounds… I have never been able to sing it without my voice breaking in the last verse and you can hear that here, too.
#sad song #traditionalfolksongs #germansong #lowgerman
