Nursery Rhymes›European Lullabies›Ой Ходить Сон (Oi Khodyt Son)
With Elena · Ukraine

Ой Ходить Сон (Oi Khodyt Son)

Key: Am~56 BPMGuitar & Piano chords

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One of Ukraine’s oldest and best-loved lullabies, first written down nearly two hundred years ago. Sleep and Drowsiness are pictured as two gentle visitors walking past the window, looking for a warm little cottage and a tiny child to rock through the night. Here you will find a singable English adaptation, the meaning, and chords.

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Verse 1

Am         Dm      Am
Ой ходить сон коло вікон,
Dm     Am      E7
а дрімота коло плота.
(Sleep walks by the windows, and Slumber walks by the fence.)
Am      Dm       Am
Dream walks softly by the panes,
Dm     Am      E7
Slumber waits along the lanes.

Verse 2

Am       Dm      Am
Де хатонька теплесенька,
Dm     Am      E7
де дитина малесенька.
(Where the cottage is warm, where the little one is small.)
Am       Dm      Am
Where the little house is warm,
Dm     Am      E7
there we’ll go and rock till dawn.
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Chords — guitar & piano

Am
×
Guitar
CEA
Piano
Dm
××
Guitar
DFA
Piano
E7
Guitar
EGB
Piano
Good to know

What this song means

Oi Khodyt Son Kolo Vikon (“Sleep Walks by the Windows”) is one of Ukraine’s oldest surviving lullabies, first recorded in the 1830s and sung ever since. It imagines Sleep and Drowsiness as two soft, wandering figures searching the night for the warmest cottage and the smallest child to visit — a gentle way of saying that rest comes looking for those who need it most. In recent years the song has been sung and shared around the world as a quiet message of comfort for Ukraine’s children.

Traditional Ukrainian lullaby. The English lines here are a singable adaptation for this arrangement, offered as a respectful tribute — not a literal translation.

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Sources & rights

  • Words and melody: see the credits in the text of this page. Older songs are traditional or in the public domain; songs by known authors keep their authors' credit.
  • Recording and arrangement: real instruments played by hand, no AI music, by Relax In No Time.
  • Chords: written by us for guitar and piano.
  • Translation: our own meaning-for-meaning translation, written for understanding. The sung words stay in the original language.

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